


Story Time With Rabbit

by Jane_Oddbody



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Bedtime Stories, Family Feels, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Other, Silly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jane_Oddbody/pseuds/Jane_Oddbody
Summary: Story Time with Rabbit started out with a quick story about Rabbit telling a bedtime story with the other SPG characters acting it out.  I was writing this while bored at work (slow couple of days).  And it is completely silly.  The following chapters are more fairy tales or classic stories involving the characters of SPG in some way.  These following chapters are not as silly (persay) and may contain some dark subject matter.  I have included warnings where they may apply.  I hope you enjoy the stories :)





	1. The Three Little Pigs

A spotlight turns on and illuminates the stage revealing a lone female robot sitting on a chair with a book in her lap.  
“Greeterings a-a-all you beautiful creatures, my name’s Rabbit, and I’m here to tell you a b-b-bedtime story. Are you all sitting comfortably?” “Well Y-Y-YOU BETTER BE SITTING COMFORTABLY! … I’ll wait.” *taps foot impatiently*…”Ok, a-a-are we all good now? Then let’s begin!”

Rabbit opens the book and the curtain on the stage opens behind her.

“*Ahem,* O-o-once upon a time there was a Momma pig and her three little baby piggies….”

Out onto the stage walk Upgrade, The Jon, and Zero wearing pig ears and fake pig noses on their faces. Upgrade curtsies to the audience, The Jon stares at nothing in particular, and Zero starts waving at random people.

“I-I-I said, once upon a time there was a MOMMA PIG and three little baby piggies….MOMMA PIG!! YO SPINE! THAT’S YOUR CUE!”

(From off stage) “I don’t wanna….” said The Spine.

“Oh c-c-come on The Spine, you don’t want to disappoint the kiddies!”

“I look ridiculous Rabbit,” said The Spine.

“N-n-nonsense you look fine, just come on out.”

The Spine slowly walks out onto the stage wearing a ridiculous blue flowered dress over top of his usual black suit, a curly brown wig with a bow in the front, pig ears and a fake pig nose.

*Giggle* “…n-n-naw Spine…*snicker*…you look just fine!” 

The Spine scowls at Rabbit. 

Rabbit waves a hand at The Spine, “Just do your bits.”

“…oh my little ba-…” said the Spine as he gets cut off by Rabbit.

“No Spine, you hafta do it in THE VOICE.”

*sigh* (The Spine in a high pitched voice) “Oh my little babies, it is time for you to go out into the world and make homes for yourselves, but you must beware of the Big Bad Wolf.”

“Good job Spine” said Rabbit.

The Spine turns and trudges off the stage muttering “why’d I hafta be the Momma pig…*grumble*”

 

“S-s-so the three little piggies set off into the world and soon found land where they decided to build houses for themselves,” said Rabbit.

“Look brothers,” said Upgrade, “I, PRINCESS Upgrade, have found land for us to build our homes.” “No thanks to you lazy bozos,” muttered Upgrade. “I am going to build my house right here and you two can have whatever’s left over to build on.”

“Umm, Princess Upgrade,” said Zero, “why are you taking over half the land and only leaving The Jon and I this little bitty piece near the back?’

Upgrade scowls at Zero.

“Because I’m Princess Upgrade and I so bequeath it,” said Upgrade who starts doing a queen wave to the audience.

Zero nervously rubs his hands together as The Jon starts wondering off to inspect the stage’s backdrop scenery.

“Yeah, well I guess that’s fair Princess Upgrade,” said Zero, “but can we at least have a tiny spot to plant a butterfly garden?”

The Jon turns around from inspecting the backdrop scenery, “yeah I like butterflies….although they don’t really taste like butter...”

“This I will allow,” said Upgrade, “for Princess Upgrade is a kind ruler and is always fair to her subjects.”

“I think you mean brothers,” said Zero

“Whatever,” said Upgrade. “Let’s just get started on building our houses.”

(A voice calls from offstage) “NOT SO FAST!” 

Onto the stage walks Hatchworth wearing a large sash and badge and carrying a clipboard.

“Who are you,” asks Upgrade.

“I’m the building inspector,” said Hatchworth.

“Well I’m sorry Mr. Building Inspector, “said Zero, “but we ain’t got any buildings yet for you to inspect.”

“…they do taste a little like flies though…,” said The Jon.

“Well yes, that is why I’m here,” said Hatchworth. “Have you filed the proper paperwork?” “Did you apply for a permit?” “You know I think this land is actually zoned a C-1 commercial zone, you will have to appeal to the zoning appeals board.” “I’m gonna tell you right now, that’s NOT gonna be easy.”  
“Commercial use?” said Zero, “but it’s in the middle of nowhere!”

“This municipality is very much into community and urban development,” said Hatchworth. “The board was thinking a Starbucks would go nicely here.”

“Well I’m Princess Upgrade and I say we build our houses here,” said Upgrade crossing her arms impatiently.

“You’ll still need to file your paperwork and make an appeal…,” said Hatchworth.

“FINE,” said Upgrade, “where do we go to file our paperwork?”

“I have the address right here,” said Hatchworth as he hands a card over to Upgrade. “Oh and you will also need a perc test, insurance and liability, a copy of your building plans, and…”

“Yeah, yeah whatever,” said Upgrade, “we’ll get it taken care of, sheesh.”

The stage curtain closes and the spotlight focuses back on Rabbit. 

“A-a-and so it was that the three little piggies applied for a building permit,” said Rabbit. “A year and a h-h-half later, after two appeals, a public hearing, and more paperwork, t-t-they had built their houses.”

Stage curtain opens to reveal a little house and The Jon.

Rabbit continued to read from the story book. “The first little piggy b-b-built his home from straw……….The Jon, that’s not straw!”

“Yeah, it’s pixie stix wrappers,” said The Jon

“That’s not what’s in the book, The Jon,” said Rabbit. “What h-h-happened to all that straw we bought for the piggy house??!”

“I like pixie stix better,” said The Jon, “they make my koi swim all fast and it tickles.”

“…OKAAAYYY THEN….”said Rabbit, “moving right along.” “The first piggy built h-h-his house out of pixie stix wrappers…because he’s a weirdo.” “Soon the Big Bad Wolf came upon the first p-p-piggies house.”

Onto the stage walks G.G. wearing a wolf costume. The Jon makes a squeak of alarm and runs into his little house and peers out the window at G.G.

“Little pig…*ahem* LITTLE PIG, LITTLE PIG LET ME IN, FOR I AM THE FEARSOME BIG BAD WOLF, HERE TO BRING MY WRATH UPON YOU,” said G.G. “ALL WHO LOOK UPON ME SHALL KNOW FEAR, FOR I AM THE BRINGER OF DARKNESS, THE HARBINGER OF PAIN…THE….”

“G.G!” said Rabbit, “j-j-just do your lines and stop hamming it up already!” (Rabbit pauses)…”Hamming it up…get it…because we’re doing the Three Little Pigs…HEY SPINE D-D-DID YOU HEAR THAT ONE!”

From off stage The Spine sighs the audible long suffering sigh of someone who’s heard one pun too many.

“Fine but just so you know,” said G.G., “it’s MY amazing acting skillz that is totally saving this story!” “Anyways…little pig, little pig, LET ME IN!”

The Jon sticks his head out the window of his pixie stix wrapper house, “not by the hairs on your big toe!”

“Big toe?” asks G.G…”I only have hooves…that’s not even how the line goes!”

Rabbit mutters in a low voice to G.G. “It’s The Jon…just g-g-go with it.”

G.G. nods to rabbit. “Then I’ll HUFF and I’ll PUFF and I’ll BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!”

“…No, you’re not coming in here…go away!” said The Jon folding his arms across his chest defiantly.

“Whatever, have it your way,” said G.G. “I’m gonna HUFF and PUFF, and BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!” 

G.G. takes a few steps back and looks the pixie stix wrapper house up and down. A targeting site rises out of a panel on the side of her head and positions itself over one of her photoreceptors. G.G. then takes in an impressively huge breath and starts to blow at the house with the wind gust of a Tropical Storm. Pixie Stix Wrappers are sent flying everywhere as the Jon gets blown sideways across the stage. G.G. stops her onslaught and the pixie stix wrappers start to rain down like confetti over the stage and the audience. The Jon is now sitting on the other side of the stage with a startled look on his face. He looks over and sees his pixie stix wrapper house is no more and starts to wail. G.G. turns around and starts to triumphantly trot off the stage, “that’s right, don’t mess with the Big Bad Wolf.”

The stage curtain closes and moments later reopens to reveal a new little house sitting on the stage with Zero standing next to it.

Rabbit continues to read from the book, “a-a-and so it was that after the Big Bad Wolf blew down the first little piggies house that she came upon the second little piggies house.” “This little piggy was smarter than the first little piggy and built his house from wood.”

“Actually they’re popsicle sticks,” said Zero.

“Y-y-yeah I know they are cuzz I helped get all the popsicle off of them,” said Rabbit, “b-b-boy was Pete’s mad when he found that mess…” 

(From somewhere in the audience) “I’m STILL mad Rabbit, and you and Zero are going to clean that mess up when we get home,” said Peter Walter VI. “I’m tired of everything in the manor being sticky!”

Both Rabbit and Zero cringe.

“ heh..heh..heh…yeah, um anyways…,” said Rabbit, “The Big Bad Wolf came upon the second little piggy’s house.”

G.G. once again trots out onto the stage and stops in front of Zero. She looks him up and down. Zero continues to stand there smiling at G.G.

“Ain’t you gonna run away scared and hide in your house?” asked G.G.

“Well, no Miss G.G.” said Zero, “I mean, Big Bad Wolf.” “I thought we could be friends.”

“The Big Bad Wolf, doesn’t NEED friends,” said G.G.

“Well, everyone needs friends,” said Zero, “don’t you even want to try?” “How about we play a game or something?”

G.G. appears contemplative for a moment. “Sure, but I get to pick the game.”

Zero smiles, “ok Miss Big Bad Wolf, what game do you want to play?”

“I wanna play……BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!!” G.G. shouts.

“What?!” said Zero, “NO…!”

G.G. extended her targeting site and took in a huge breath into her bellows.

“Oh please Miss Big Bad Wolf; can’t we talk about this?!” cried Zero, but it was too late.

G.G. let loose another tropical storm force wind at the Popsicle stick structure. The little house shuddered and swayed but did not collapse. Zero put his arms up as if to defend himself from the wind but was also unmoved. G.G. activated two turbine fans that unfolded and rose from her chassis to add more power. With the added wind velocity the little house finally cracked and was blown into pieces across the stage. Zero was blown clear across the stage and past the curtain on the other side. There was a large crash from that side, offstage. 

G.G. turned and started prance offstage as she sang, “Well, who’s that blowing down your house…that’s right…it’s G.G. the Big Bad Wolf…and everyone loves meeeee..”

The stage curtain closed.

“W-w-wow that was a loud crash,” said Rabbit. “Don’t worry folks, I’m sure he’s ok…I hope.” “W-w-well he BETTER be ok because I’m not gonna clean up that popsicle mess all by myself…,” muttered Rabbit.

The stage curtain opens again to reveal the final little house. This little house is made out of bricks and has a drawbridge and turrets. Upgrade stands next to the little brick…(castle?) wearing a tiara.

G.G. starts to skip back out onto the stage but before she can get close to the house, Upgrade lifts her hand to G.G. and orders “STOP RIGHT THERE SISTER!”

G.G. slides to a halt and looks at Upgrade for a second. A big smile comes across her face. “You called me sister!” she squeels, “I knew you guys would finally accept me as part of the family!”

“Not THAT kind of sister,” Upgrade said. “Anyway, I know what you want to do and you are not going to blow down my beautiful princess castle!” 

G.G. angrily vents steam. “Yeah whatever, I didn’t want to be YOUR sister anyway!” she said, “and I WILL too blow your stupid castle down!”

Upgrade defiantly raises her chin, “we’ll see about that!” Upgrade marches into the brick house-castle and raises the drawbridge blocking the entrance. Upgrade then climbs out onto one of the turrets at the top and yells down to G.G. “take your best shot!”

G.G. huffs some steam and turns and gallops back a few steps. She again raises her targeting site and also her collapsible turbine fans and takes aim. She fills her bellows with as much air as she can intake and unleashes the gale of wind upon the brick house-castle.

It doesn’t budge nor does it make a single shudder.

Upgrade giggles, “HA! you can’t knock down my castle, it’s built to last!” “I had to file so much paperwork to build this stupid house…I mean princess castle...that I wanted to make sure it would never come down.” “The only way it’s coming down is if it gets demolished and the paperwork you’d have to file would take FOREVER.”

(From offstage)…”Well actually there isn’t that much paperwork to file for a demolition and I just so happen to have the form with me,” says Hatchworth walking back onto the stage.

G.G. runs over to Hatchworth, “where do I sign?!”

“Wait…you can’t do that…” said Upgrade.

G.G. puts her hoof print on the form attached to Hatchworth’s clipboard. “Thank you Miss Big Bad Wolf,” said Hatchworth, “it was a pleasure doing business with you.” “OK GUYS, BRING IT IN!!”

A loud rumbling is heard from offstage.

“Uh…what’s happening…?” asked Upgrade

At that moment a small crane with an attached wrecking ball is driven on stage. The driver gets out and salutes to G.G. before walking back offstage.

“Oh goody!” cries G.G. as she runs toward the crane and into the operator’s seat.

“WHAT!...NO…THAT’S NOT FAIR!!..THAT’S CHEATING!!” cried Upgrade.

“I’m sorry Miss Upgrade, but the forms have been fairly filled out by the Big Bad Wolf here and she is within her right to demolish the structure,” said Hatchworth. “Have a nice day,” he says as he walks offstage.

Upgrade turns and stars at the crane and wrecking ball with G.G. behind it’s wheel. “oh no…”

“Hey Upgrade,” said G.G., “guess what I came in like!” 

Upgrade mutters “…a wrecking ball,” before leaping from her turret and running off the stage.

The wrecking ball swings into the side of the brick house-castle and collapses it in one swing. Brick and mortar dust clouds the air. G.G. is giggling behind the wheel and hasn’t turned the crane off even though Upgrade’s house is now demolished. The wrecking ball takes another swing and makes contact with the wall at the back of the stage knocking the backdrop down and a small hole into the wall. The crane swings wide to get ready to make another crash with the wrecking ball. This time the ball swings forward over the audience just barely missing Rabbit who is still seated in her chair at the front of the stage. 

“G.G. STOP!” yells The Spine as he comes running out onto the stage. His cry startles G.G. enough that she lets go of the controls. The Spine leaps up into onto the crane and quickly shuts it down. 

In the audience Peter Walter VI is slowly dragging his hand down his mask in embarrassment before one of the Walter Workers advises him that this might be a good time to hide in the dressing room until the angry mob leaves.

Rabbit calmly looks around at the chaos and the mess. “A-a-and so it was that the Big Bad Wolf had ham for dinner, the municipality got their Starbucks, and The Building Inspector got an award at work for his spotless record of enforcing the rules.” “The moral of t-t-this story boys and girls is, always file your paperwork, and a wrecking ball always wins against a Princess…goodnight everybody!” Behind Rabbit the stage curtain comes crashing down to the stage as the audience leaves via the emergency exits.

-The End.


	2. Cinderella and the Wicked Step-Pappy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter immediately follows the end of Chapter 1 after the disastrous first show of "Story Time with Rabbit." The robots are being punished which makes Rabbit start to feel like Cinderella. Shenanigans ensue.

The first show of “Story Time with Rabbit,” had been an unmitigated disaster. Peter was currently dreading the repair bill that was sure to be coming for the hole knocked into the back wall of the stage as well as bills for all the other various damages caused to the theatre by their production of “The Three Little Pigs”. How had the robots even managed to get their hands on a crane and wrecking ball in the first place?! At least no one had been hurt. Peter dropped down into the chair behind his desk and sighed. He had hoped that the “Story Time with Rabbit” shows at the Zoo’s newly opened theater would bring in new fans for the Walter Automatons and perhaps show off some of the other talents the robots had aside from singing. Unfortunately, after the disastrous first show he was sure there was no way the Zoo was going to have them back. 

Peter raised himself warily from his desk and headed out into the hallway. Good, nothing he’d touched so far was sticky so that meant Rabbit and Zero were following his orders to clean up the mess they’d made with the popsicles. He’d have to think of a suitable punishment for them the next morning for everything else, as well as for Hatchworth for bringing a freaking wrecking ball onto the stage and G.G. for using said wrecking ball. Peter yawned. It was too late in the night and he was too tired and drained to even think on the subject. He headed off to bed grumbling the whole way about wrecking balls and unruly robots.

-Several floors below Peter’s office- 

Rabbit stood leaning on her mop as Zero was washing down the walls with a sponge. Maybe it had been a bad idea to play that hybrid game of hide & seek dodgeball through the manor with the remains of the melting popsicles they’d removed from their sticks? Was that something like regret in her processer? Nah… it wasn’t. They were just having fun after all. Why did Peter always have to come down so hard on them?! Pappy had always been SO understanding… Well, except for that *one time*, … but he hadn’t been himself then and he was grieving over the loss of Delilah. Rabbit frowned to herself at that memory and quickly shoved it to the back of her processor. 

Why did Pappy have to go away and leave them in the care of these other Peters? *sigh*, Pappy… None of them measured up to the original in Rabbit’s opinion. The latest Peter obviously being the worst! With Peter Walter VI she felt like she’d been left with a wicked Step-Pappy! It was so unfair! Here she was being forced to scrub this huge manor by this cruel Step-Pappy! Rabbit leaned on her mop and pouted.

Zero finished wiping the wall he had been working on. “Well that’s all done,…uh hey Rabbit, are you going to actually mop the floor or do you need me to do it like all the other floors?” 

Rabbit continued to pout. “I-I-I’m too distraught with the unfairness of this Zero.” “Petes has us here working like indentured servants or something!” “We’ve been at this a-a-all night!”

“I know what you mean, it’s been hard work scrubbing all the levels of the manor from top to bottom but I guess that’s what we get for making such a mess,” said Zero. “I’m so glad you were here to supervise me and make sure I didn’t miss a spot.” 

Rabbit waved her hand toward Zero, “only f-f-fair to help you out.” Rabbit looked around and sighed. “I think after this floor is mopped, that is the last of it.” “I’m heading off to stasis; I-I-I’m too upset and overworked to continue on.”

Zero smiled and took the mop from Rabbit as she turned and started to shuffle off with her head hung down. “Ok Miss Rabbit, I hope you have a nice stasis.”

Rabbit reached her room and flung herself onto her reinforced bed and stared at the ceiling. Peter never let them have any fun! He was so mean working them so hard. She felt just like Cinderella with her wicked Step-Mother. Rabbit sighed and soon drifted off into stasis.

“CINDERELLA!!...WAKE UP!” Someone was shouting. Rabbit blinked her photoreceptors open. Something wasn’t quite right. Her room looked completely different. Had the other robuts moved her to the attic while she was in stasis as some sort of joke? “CINDERELLA!!!...GET UP YOU LAZY GIRL!!!”

Rabbit sat up and looked around to see who was shouting. Her photoreceptors focused on a very angry looking Wanda standing near the attic doorway. “Oh hey Wanda, w-w-what’s going on?” “What’s all the shouting about?” Rabbit took another look at Wanda. “And w-w-what’s with that silly get-up you’re wearing,” she said, “looks like you’re an old timey maid or someth’n.”

Wanda stormed across that room and grabbed Rabbit by her wrist joint and yanked her up off the bed; which was quite impressive considering Rabbit wasn’t exactly what you could call “light”.

“Whoa Wanda,” Rabbit cried, “you been work’n out??!”

“I HAVE been WORKING all morning,” growled Wanda, “alone!” “Your Step-Pappy and step sisters are going to be up any minute and you haven’t started their breakfast yet!” “You need to get downstairs right now and get to work Cinderella!”

“Who’s t-t-this Cinderella person,” cried Rabbit, “my name’s Rabbit… and I was built back in 1896..y-y-you know when…”

“STOP PLAYING AROUND AND GET TO WORK NOW OR I’LL BE FORCED TO TELL THE MASTER AND THEN YOU’LL HAVE A LASHING,” screeched Wanda so loud that it left Rabbit’s audioreceptors ringing.

Rabbit threw her hands up in a defensive gesture. “Okay, okay…sheesh,” said Rabbit as she started to shuffle backwards toward the attic door, “don’t g-g-get your drawers in a twist!”

Rabbit muttered to herself as she stomped her way down the flights of stairs from the attic to the ground floor. Who did Wanda think she was yelling at her like that?! Ok…well Wanda did yell at her on occasion but not to cook breakfast. Wanda should know that she didn’t really know how to cook. Iris had tried to teach Rabbit but after the third fire they figured it was not worth the trouble. Cooking was more Hatchworth’s thing. Rabbit stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked around in shock. “Whoa, when did Pete’s go all S-S-Salgexicon up in here,” she said to herself, “this place looks like he hired a decorator from the local Renn-Faire!” Rabbit shook her head and walked toward the kitchen. 

Once she entered the kitchen Rabbit received another shock. “H-h-holy retro Batman!” she exclaimed as she looked around the kitchen. The shining modern Walter Manor kitchen she was used to had somehow been replaced with a very medieval looking version. “I-i-is that a fireplace?!” “How am I supposed to cook with t-t-this!” Rabbit walked over and inspected the fireplace that was now where the stove used to be. Hmm, how do you turn it on? Rabbit couldn’t find an ignition button like on some of the gas lit fireplaces that had been installed around Walter Manor. Oh well, back to basics then. Rabbit unhinged her jaw and soon a fire was burning steadily in the hearth. “O-o-okay now what to cook,” said Rabbit, “or HOW to cook for t-t-that matter!”

An hour and only minor fire damage later, Rabbit walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room carrying a steaming tray of what could pass for food…she hoped. She stopped short of the table and stared for a moment. Sitting at the table was Peter Walter VI, minus his mask and his face as it had been prior to his blue matter accident. He was also wearing very outdated clothing that looked like something from an Italian Renaissance painting. To either side of Peter sat Upgrade in a beautiful Italian Rennaissance gown in red and a very uncomfortable looking Spine wearing a similar gown in blue. The Spine was emitting a lot of steam and muttering something that sounded a lot like “damnit Rabbit, why am I wearing a blue dress in another one of these stupid stories of yours.” Peter VI was drumming his fingers on the table and scowling at Rabbit as she sat the tray on the table.

“Our breakfast is an hour late Cinderella,” Peter VI said with the coldest tone she’d ever heard him use. “We’ve been sitting here for an hour waiting on you to bring us our breakfast!” 

Something about that cold tone sent shivers down her neural network. She blinked her mismatched eyes and took the cover off the tray. “S-s-sorry Petes,” Rabbit said, “here’s your breakfast, I had a bit of trouble with the eggs.”

Peter VI looked over the steaming mess on the tray with a disgusted and critical eye, “what IS this?”

“I told ya Petes; e-e-eggs,” said Rabbit.

“Why are they green,” asked Peter.

“Oh, w-w-well ya see,” started Rabbit, “I couldn’t find the salt or pepper so I looked all around the kitchen.” “By the w-w-way Petes, you sure have gone overboard with this whole medieval makeover of the Manor.” “You even took out the s-s-stove!” “How’s a girl supposed to cook without an s-s-stove?!” Peter VI narrowed his eyes at Rabbit as she continued her explanation. “Anyway, s-s-so I couldn’t find any salt or pepper but I did found a jar of dried m-m-mint so I used that instead.” 

Peter continued his cold stare. “And what is this piece of blackened leather supposed to be?”

“Well y-y-you can’t have green eggs without ham!” exclaimed Rabbit…”Get it?”…”GREEN EGGS AND HAM?!!” Rabbit shook with held in giggles and a few escaped snickers. 

“THIS,” said Peter pointing to the charred and still smoking remains (that did in fact look exactly like burnt leather),” is supposed to be HAM??!!”

“I uh, had trouble with your fire-place-stove thingy,” said Rabbit, “so, I u-u-used my flame thrower.” “I might have over cooked it a bit.”

Peter Walter VI gave a slight smile…”yes, a bit…”

“Y-y-yeah…just a bit,” said Rabbit.

The next second Peter Walter VI was on his feet and with one swift motion he sent the tray and its contents flying against the far wall. “THIS FOOD, AS YOU CALL IT, IS NOT FIT FOR PIGS,” he screamed directly into Rabbit’s face. “YOU ARE TO CLEAN THIS ENTIRE DINING ROOM AND THE KITCHEN FROM TOP TO BOTTOM” yelled Peter. As the food that had been thrown against the wall made a greasy trail down to the floor Peter smirked and added, “…and after that you’ll clean out the pig pen…with your hands.” 

Rabbits lip trembled a bit but she was in too much shock to fully react.

“We will be going into town for our breakfast and then I will take my beloved daughters shopping for outfits to wear to tonight’s Royal Ball,” Peter turned back and glanced at Upgrade and The Spine with a smile.

Upgrade was giving a cold smirk to Rabbit but the Spine was hiding his eyes under the brim of his hat (which he was oddly wearing with the blue dress…some people just love their hats).

“Come girls, we need to be off,” said Peter to Upgrade and The Spine.

“Sir, I’m really not…” The Spine started to say before being cut off by a sharp look from Peter. “Nevermind…FATHER…I just LOVE shopping,” said The Spine.

As Peter, Upgrade and The Spine left the dining room Peter turned and added one last thing, “And Cinderella, if you haven’t finished cleaning up the dining room, kitchen, and pig pen as well as your usual chores by the time I get back you WILL be getting a lashing.” With that Peter turned on his heels and stomped out the door.

As the front door slammed shut Rabbit slowly sunk to the floor reeling from what had just happened. Oil tears started to leak down her cheeks. She reached up and wiped them away with her sleeve. Peter Walter VI really WAS a wicked Step-Pappy! Rabbit looked around the dining room. It was going to take some work to get the food stains off the wall and she already knew the kitchen was a disaster. Rabbit slowly got to her feet and straightened her clothes. “If my wicked Step-Pappy wants everything clean, I’m g-g-gonna do it plus everything else!” “He’s not gonna get this robut down!” “Ohh…b-b-but first things first..” Rabbit stepped out into the hall and yelled “Hey Wanda; where w-w-we keep the cleaning supplies??!!”

Hours later as the sun was starting to set Rabbit stumbled into her attic room and fell face forward onto the bed. It promptly collapsed in response. Rabbit groaned. Her pink wig was a frizzed mess with bits of hay and other debris sticking out of it in places. She had mud and muck stains on her clothes nearly up to her waist and it was also covering her arms and hands. She knew most of it had come from mucking through the pig’s pen with her bare hands while crawling on her knees. Then later, as part of her "usual chores," she hoed and watered the large vegetable garden that was now in the place where Norman’s rose garden should have been. Even with her robotic strength, stamina and speed she had *just* managed to finish the last of her chores before Peter Walter VI walked through the front door. She took pride that no matter how hard he had tried he could not find a single thing she had missed. Frustrated and claiming disgust with how she now looked and smelled, he sent her to her room for the rest of the night. Rabbit sighed and rolled over onto her back. Was this going to be her life now? Trapped working her hands to their wiring for a mean and wicked Step-Pappy? In the gloom she saw two glowing blue eyes staring down at her which caused her to jump and let out a small scream. 

“Aww, I’m sorry Miss Rabbit I didn’t mean to scare you.” Rabbit reached over and turned up the flame on the lantern near her bed. Zero was standing to the side of what was left of her crushed bed staring down at her.

“Zero?” Rabbit squinted her eyes at the other robot, “w-w-what are ya doing with those mouse ears on your head?” 

Zero nervously rubbed his hands together as he briefly looked up at the mouse ears he was wearing, “umm well I’m a door mouse.”

“A door mouse…really,” said Rabbit in a slightly sarcastic tone.

“Yes really,” said Zero as he pointed to the far wall behind him, “see, over there’s my mouse hole and I sneak down to the kitchen at night and steal cheese, but I don’t eat the cheese because I’m lactose intolerant and a robot… so I just put it back later.”

Rabbit blinked at Zero for a second before turning to look at his mouse hole in the wall. The mouse hole was enormous. It was definitely for a Zero sized mouse. “Huh,” said Rabbit, “ya think they’d n-n-notice that…”

In the next moment Zero had dropped to his knees and wrapped Rabbit in a crushing hug. “Oh Rabbit, they have treated you so terribly,” he cried. “I want to help you out so much but I can’t really sew and I’m not really supposed to be playing with scissors anyway, and I’m not so good with maps…and…”

Rabbit managed to gasp some air into her bellows, “what..?” Zero released her from his hug. “What are you talking about, Zero,” Rabbit gasped.

“Oh well, the Royal Ball,” said Zero. “You need to go and then you can meet the Prince and marry him and you can become a Princess and…”

“Isn’t Princess more of Upgrade’s thing…?” interrupted Rabbit.

“Well yeah, but if Miss Upgrade marries the Prince and becomes Princess then you won’t be able to get away from your awful Step-Pappy,” said Zero, “and besides, that’s how it goes in the book…”

“Wait, what..?!” asked Rabbit

“huh?” replied Zero

“Did y-y-you just mention a book…” said Rabbit

“…no…” said Zero looking to each side nervously

“I coulda sworn y-y-you just mentioned a book,” said Rabbit

“…no..WELL ANYWAY, you just hafta go to that ball Miss Rabbit,” said Zero, “and since I can’t sew you a ball gown, you’re gonna have to go talk to your fairy Godmother.” Zero grinned at Rabbit as if this was the most sane and reasonable piece of information he had ever imparted with anyone.

Rabbit decided to let the book mention drop. “Ok door-mouse-Zero, where do I find this fairy Godmother?”

“Oh he’ll be in the garden tonight, just after your wicked Step-Pappy and his daughters leave for the ball, “ said Zero.

He…?

Around 8pm that night Peter Walter VI, Upgrade and The Spine, who was now extremely uncomfortable to be wearing a blue ball gown, left for the Royal Ball. Rabbit hurried down the stairs and out the back door into the garden. She didn’t see anyone, fairy or not, anywhere in the garden. “Hello…hellooooo Fairy Godmother, “called Rabbit. Suddenly a blue portal opened and out stepped Hatchworth wearing fairy wings, a tiara and holding a sparkly star tipped magic wand. “Oh brother…” cried Rabbit. 

“No…Fairy Godmother,” said Hatchworth nonplussed.

“Riiiight…” said Rabbit. “You know w-w-what, I’ve had a weird enough day already…LET’S D-D-DO THIS!” “How are ya gonna get me to the Royal Ball…Fairy Godmother.”

“Well first, Cinderella, we need to get you cleaned up,” said Hatchworth, “because girlfriend,… YOU STINK!” Hatchworth reached back into the blue portal and pulled out a bucket of soapy water with a long handled scrub brush in it and what looked like the business end of a fire hose.

“WHOA, WHOA, WHOA…H-H-HOLD YOUR HORSES THERE COWBOY!” cried Rabbit, “I’M NOT W-W-WATERPROOF!!!”

Hatchworth sheepishly looked down at the fire hose and bucket in his hand, “oh yeah, right,” he said as he tossed them back into the blue portal haphazardly. “Guess we’ll have to try a different route then.” Hatchworth raised his sparkly wand and cleared his throat, “ahem…SUPERLOUS DUPERLOUS SPIKKITY SPANITY!” The wand waved through the air and Rabbit could feel a tingling warmth pass over her. “Ah, much better,” said Hatchworth with a smile.

Rabbit looked down at herself and she was no longer covered in grime and filth. Instead she was now clean and wearing a shimmering pink ball gown. Rabbit reached up to feel her hair and found that not only was the bits of hay and debris gone but her wig was now styled up in an elegant bun with a jeweled hairband. Rabbit gasped in surprise. “…I feel SO PRETTY…” she said.

Hatchworth’s mustache twitched a little as he smiled. “Now to find a way to get you to the Royal Ball,” he said. Hatchworth looked around where he was standing in the garden. “Hmm, what I really need is a pumpkin…” said Hatchworth as he started to wonder around the garden searching. Hatchworth paused his search and shouted back to Rabbit, “well don’t just stand there, help me find a pumpkin!” Hatchworth continued his search muttering something about wishing there was an organic produce store nearby.

Rabbit walked down the edge of the garden. She didn’t remember seeing any pumpkins on the vines when she was working in the garden earlier that day but it couldn’t hurt to check again in case she’d missed one. Rabbit reached the edge of where the creeping pumpkin vines started and hiked up her skirts walking deeper into the garden. Something finally caught her eye deep in the depth of the vines. There stood The Jon with a wide grin and holding a pumpkin plant leaf over his head. 

“Jon w-w-what are you doing?”

The Jon continued to grin as he replied “Imma pumpkin!”

Really?...”Jon you’re a robot, how many t-t-times we gotta tell you that,” said Rabbit

The Jon frowned, “but I really am a pumpkin…see!” The Jon shook the leaf he was holding over his head.

Rabbit was just about to argue with The Jon when she heard Hatchworth’s voice behind her, “Ah, great you found a pumpkin!” Rabbit turned and stuck her finger in the air and opened her mouth to voice her argument about The Jon not being a pumpkin but then she remembered that 1) this was the Jon she was dealing with, 2) this was Hatchworth she was also dealing with and 3) some seriously weird things had been going down in the last 24 hours. She promptly dropped her finger and closed her mouth. After a pause she said in a small defeated tone, “yeah, I found a … pumpkin.”

Hatchworth walked around The Jon, looking him up and down, “yes, yes this pumpkin will do just fine.” Hatchworth pulled out his fairy wand and swished it through the air toward pumpkin-Jon, “weirdos transformus!” There was a bright flash of light and in the place of where The Jon had been standing was a bright shiny gold Rolls Royce Roadster. In the driver’s seat was a Chauffer that had very odd looking orange and white toned skin that seemed to shimmer a bit like fish scales. Hatchworth opened the door and gestured toward Rabbit, “M’lady your carriage awaits.”

Rabbit stepped toward the open car door and peered inside. The interior of the car was entirely a brilliant blue. After she stepped in and sat down she noticed a hotdog lying on the seat next to her. At that moment she heard The Jon’s voice faintly giggle and say “that tickles.” “Okayyyyy,” Rabbit said, “now I’m disturbed…”

Hatchworth just smiled at her and completely ignored her last comment. “You carriage will get you to the Royal Ball super-fast,” he said, “just please don’t eat the hotdog.” “Oh and two more things,” Hatchworth waved his wand again “boutonius fancius shoezius!” Rabbit’s regular boots were turned into what appeared to be fancy glass slippers. “They’re not glass, because you would shatter them; they are actually weight bearing plexiglass,” said Hatchworth. 

How thoughtful?... “Thank you so much Fairy Godmother,” cried Rabbit. She was seriously digging her new fancy shoes.

“Now remember Cinderella,” said Hatchworth, “everything will revert back to its original form at midnight, so it is VERY important that you leave before the last toll of the clock tower.” Hatchworth closed the door to the car, “Good luck!”

The car took off as soon as the door shut at great speed. Was that The Jon’s voice she could vaguely hear over the car’s engine saying “VROOM, VROOM?” She made sure to set an alarm with her internal clock. There was no way she wanted to be stuck inside The Jon’s portal when he turned back into himself...or "pumpkin" self after midnight. She was already a bit skeeved-out to be sitting inside it even if he was currently a car. 

It wasn’t very long before the car arrived outside the Royal Castle. The car pulled up to the entrance and the odd looking Chauffer got out and opened the door for Rabbit. Rabbit stepped out and stared in amazement. 

The castle was gorgeous. A huge marble staircase led up to the entrance and there were many glamorous looking people standing around in ball gowns and tuxedos. Hmm tuxedos...that wasn't very anachronistic. Rabbit shrugged. She turned her attention back onto the castle. This castle was 10 times better than any she’d ever seen in any amusement park! She excitedly walked up the staircase and into the main entrance. The entrance led to a sort of balcony entrance overlooking the ballroom floor. The ball was in full swing and people were dancing to music being played by an orchestra. As the sea of colored ball gowns swished around the room, she suddenly caught the sight of blue and silver. The Spine was dancing with someone who looked and was dressed exactly like what you would expect for Prince Charming, or at least from the movies she’d seen. It was hard to make out his features as the dancers whirled around but she could tell that The Spine was uncomfortable by how stiffly he was dancing and the amount of steam pouring out of him. She couldn’t help but giggle a bit, not just because she could tell he was uncomfortable but also because The Spine, true to form, was still wearing his beloved fedora.

The song ended and the guy who was dancing with The Spine did a deep bow to his dance partner as The Spine stiffly walked away at a quick pace. How she wished she had a camera. The Spine would be doing her chores around the manor for weeks to make sure that picture didn’t end up on the band’s website. Then she frowned. Oh right…she just had to get back to her normal life! When The Spine’s former dance partner stood up from his bow he just happened to look up at the entrance and directly toward Rabbit, standing there in her pink shimmering gown. A servant came up and spoke to him briefly before turning and heading toward the stairs up to the balcony. When the servant got to the top of the stairs he headed directly to Rabbit and did a little bow when he reached her. “Madam, the Prince would like the honor of having you as his dance partner, would you follow me please,” said the servant.

Rabbit was led down to the ballroom floor and presented to the Prince. As soon as Rabbit saw who it really was she almost had to do a double take…”Michael Reed?” 

“Pardon?” said the Prince.

“Oh, I’m s-s-sorry you just look a LOT like someone I know,” said Rabbit.

“Ah,” replied the Prince, “please allow me to introduce myself, I am Prince Charming.”

“Oh yeah, just like the b-b-book,” said Rabbit.

“What?” said Prince Charming.

“…Huh” said Rabbit

“You mentioned a book?” said Prince Charming

“Oh no...,” said Rabbit, “...I-I-I didn’t mention a book…” Rabbit gave a nervous giggle, “no, I said y-y-you had the same LOOK; yeah that’s it… you LOOK just l-l-like my friend.”

“How very interesting to know that I have a twin running around somewhere,” said Prince Charming. “Now M’lady, would you do me the honor?” said Prince Charming extending his arm.

The music began to play and the Prince and Rabbit began to dance around the ballroom. She ended up dancing with him most of the night. Rabbit wondered if the Michael Reed back at the real Walter Manor knew how to ballroom dance. Probably not, she thought, he probably elected to take banjo lessons or something like that instead. As they danced around the room she saw Peter Walter VI and Upgrade giving her a sour look. The Spine looked as though he couldn’t care less and just wanted this Ball to be over with already. Rabbit winked at her wicked Step-Pappy. Peter’s face grew red in anger. Surely he wouldn’t make a scene here. It didn’t go that way in the books, right? To her relief the dance soon spun her to the other side of the ballroom where she was no longer in Peter’s sight. Should she be concerned? He had already proved how mean he could be but before she could ponder it any further her internal alarm clock pinged. Uh oh, it was very close to midnight! 

Rabbit promptly stopped dancing, reached down and pulled off one of her fancy shoes and handed it to the Prince. “Here t-t-take this,” Rabbit said, “no time to explain, but it’s important!” With that Rabbit turned and ran from the ballroom. The Prince was left standing there, confused and holding her shoe in her wake.

Rabbit ran all the way down the marble stairs and looked around but didn’t see her Jon-pumpkin-get-away-car. She put her fingers to her mouth and blew a loud whistle. The gold Rolls Royce came careening to a halt in front of her. The door swung open by itself and she dived in as the car tore off into the night. She didn’t think it would be possible but the car went even faster on the return trip home. The clock tower in the nearby village was chiming midnight. On the eleventh chime, Rabbit dove out of the car before it even came to a full stop. It had been close as the car changed back into a bewildered looking Jon a millisecond later. 

Rabbit finally came to a rolling stop from her dive out of the car. *ouch*…Rabbit got up and started to dust herself off before realizing she was back to wearing her old soiled dress. “Great…I-I-I’m a mess again,” she said. She sighed and looked around but now could see no sign of The Jon or Hatchworth anywhere. Well that was just great. She was also now missing one shoe but was happy to see the remaining one had stayed in its clear fancy shoe form. Well that was one positive. She took off the remaining shoe and stuck it in her pocket and headed into the manor.

Rabbit hid the shoe under her mattress, which was still on the floor from her bed collapse earlier. She cleaned herself up and got into bed to go into stasis. She knew what was going to come next. She’d read this book to various Walter children over the years. Now the Prince would come looking for her and she’d soon be away from her wicked Step-Pappy and everything would end happily ever after for her. Maybe this could somehow even get her back to her normal reality. She smiled and went into stasis.

The next morning Rabbit was violently shaken out of stasis. “Wake her up, she needs to answer for this!” someone was yelling. Rabbit opened her eyes to see that it had been Wanda who had been shaking her by the shoulders. Upgrade was standing on one side giving her a cruel smile. Rabbit turned her head and saw Peter Walter VI standing to the other side, now holding her fancy shoe. How had he found it?!

“So, you just thought you could waltz right into upper society,” said Peter, “and pretend to be a high society lady...maybe land yourself a Prince?!”

“H-h-how did you find that?” asked Rabbit

“Nevermind that,” said Peter, “answer the question!”

Rabbit sat up. …Wait, did this happen in the book? Oh yes, the book! Rabbit knew what was really going to happen so it didn’t matter if her wicked Step-Pappy found the shoe. Rabbit smirked at Peter now full of confidence, “i-i-it doesn’t matter that you found my shoe, everything will end up as it should!”

“As what should?!” growled Peter.

“How this… this, s-s-story should go!” said Rabbit. “Last night my fairy Godmother came and t-t-turned my dress into a ball gown and turned my old boots into fancy shoes!” “She, I mean he, even turned a p-p-pumpkin,… okay well that was actually a robot pretending to be a pumpkin…but anyway…, into a car for me!”

“You’re delusional,” said Peter

“I a-a-am not,” cried Rabbit. “It’s all in the story!” “I went to the ball and the Prince fell in love w-w-with me and now I can go and live in the castle and be a Princess and get far, far away from y-y-you; just like it says in the story!”

Peter smirked, “that sounded like a confession,” he said in a tone that was a bit too calm.

Armed soldiers suddenly entered the room followed by Prince Charming. Rabbit’s photoreceptors went wide. This wasn’t right! Something was terribly wrong!

“So it’s true,” said Prince Charming, “she was an imposter.” Prince Charming turned to Peter Walter VI, “I thank you for being such a faithful servant to the crown and warning me of this deceit.” 

“It was my honor,” said Peter with a small bow

The Prince turned to his soldiers, “arrest her and throw her in jail.”

“Your highness,” said Peter, “I’m not sure that will do for her.” “She is obviously quite mad and delusional and I think her punishment would be better suited to the asylum.”

“Yes, I suppose you are right,” said Prince Charming, “we can’t have a traitorous mad woman free to roam around, especially during the royal wedding.” The Prince turned toward Upgrade and smiled warmly, who in return did a small wave and blew a kiss to him. 

Rabbit’s boiler sank and although she wasn’t organic, she felt for all-the-world like she was nauseous. No…this couldn’t be. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end!

The Prince gave the command for his soldiers to seize her and they marched toward her. “NO!!” she screamed…”NO THIS ISN’T HOW THE STORY GOES!!!” One of the soldiers pulled a sack over her head and everything went dark. “NOOOO!!! DON’T TAKE ME TO THE ASYLUM…NOOO THIS ISN’T RIGHT…NOOOOO!!!” she continued to scream into the darkness.

Someone was shaking her again. “Rabbit…Rabbit…wake up!” someone was yelling. “NOOOO…SOMEONE HELP MEEEEE!!!” Rabbit continued to scream. Suddenly there was a loud smack sound and Rabbit momentarily saw stars before her photoreceptors refocused. When they came into focus she saw a very worried looking Spine standing over her with his hand still raised.

“…Y-Y-You SMACKED me!” cried Rabbit rubbing her cheek

“You weren’t responding to anything else and your screaming had woken up the entire household,” said The Spine, “you really had Peter worried.” Peter stood off to the side. He was back in his usual key-hole mask. Even though his face was obscured somehow Rabbit could tell he had really been worried.

“Oh Spine i-i-it was awful!” said Rabbit. “I had t-t-the WORST dream…and you were there…and you were there…and you were there…and you were there…and you were there...” Rabbit continued to say as she pointed to various inhabitants of Walter Manor who had filed into her room.

“Hey now,... that’s my shtick,” said The Spine.

“Oh Spine, I dreamed I was Cinderella a-a-and I had the meanest wicked Step-Pappy!” said Rabbit before remembering who standing in her room had actually been the character in her dream. She noticed Peter tilt his head a little to the side as if in thought.

“Y-y-yeah and everything went wrong and instead of m-m-marrying the Prince they were going to throw me in an asylum to punish me!” said Rabbit.

“I think you’ve been reading too many fairy tales,” said The Spine. “Now, If you’re not really in any danger, the rest of the household would like to go back to bed.”

“Y-y-yeah sure…” said Rabbit. She was still a little shaken from her dream but The Spine had a point. It had just been a dream afterall and there was no reason to keep the rest of the household up. “O-o-okay goodnight everyone, “said Rabbit, “s-s-sorry for waking you guys!”

Everyone filed out of Rabbit’s bedroom except Peter. Peter approached her bed and sat down on the edge of it. “So, you had a nightmare that you were Cinderella?” asked Peter.

“Umm…yeah,” said Rabbit feeling a little uneasy.

“Let me guess,” said Peter, “I was the mean wicked Step-Pappy, wasn’t I?”

Rabbit looked down at her hands and fiddled with her blanket a little. “Umm, yeah…yeah you were,” said Rabbit.

Peter sat there a moment staring at her. It made Rabbit feel more uncomfortable. She felt she was being analyzed like a fly under a microscope.

“You know I don’t enjoy punishing you or your siblings,” said Peter. “But I have to do it sometimes.” “All of you are wonderful, unique individuals that my ancestor built, and I am now the current Peter Walter and I take watching over all of you very seriously.” “It is an honor and a huge responsibility, that I try to do right.” “I have to give out punishments so you learn that there are consequences.” “I want you to learn and be a better person.” Peter looked away for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know, maybe I’ve been too harsh if you’re having dreams as me being your wicked Step-Pappy.”

“No, no you haven’t,” said Rabbit, “not really.” “Yeah, the wicked Step-Pappy i-i-in my dream looked like you but really wasn’t you.” “I-I-I see that now, you actually care about us Peter.” “Besides you never had any of us clean out a pig’s pen with our bare hands,” Rabbit laughed.

“Not yet,” said Peter.

Rabbit stopped laughing and gave a horrified look at Peter which caused him to start laughing. “No, I wouldn’t do that…but I might make you clean up Snowball’s kitty litter box with a spatula.” Peter continued to laugh as Rabbit’s horrified face continued. “Oh, don’t worry Rabbit, you would have to MAJORLY screw up for me to even consider that,” said Peter.

Rabbit gave a nervous laugh, “yeah...and it’s not like we’ve ever majorly screwed up T-T-THAT bad!”

“Well the incident at the Zoo’s theater came close…” said Peter. “But, no one was hurt and now that I’ve thought about it, the only real damage had been to the building which will probably cost us some money to repair but it is something that CAN be fixed.” 

“So, w-w-we’re off the hook then,” said Rabbit.

“Oh no, I didn’t say that,” said Peter, “but I think the punishment will be more along the lines of having a car wash, concert or something to raise money to go toward the repairs.” “I think that’s fair.”

“Yeah, I guess t-t-that’s fair,” said Rabbit.

“Well I’m going to head back to sleep,” said Peter,” I have to check with the Zoo and see if they’ve assessed our bill for all the damages in the morning.” Peter got up and headed toward the door.

“Peter,” said Rabbit

Peter stopped and turned back toward Rabbit.

“You’re not a mean wicked Step-Pappy,” said Rabbit, “a-a-and you’re doing a pretty dang good job. “Pappy, would be proud.”

“Thanks Rabbit,” said Peter. Peter wished her good night and left.

Rabbit lay back down and shut her photoreceptors. No, Peter wasn’t a wicked Step-Pappy. She just hope he didn’t find her and The Jon’s finger painted mural in lower lab #7…or the chewed gum collection…or the “swimming hole” they dug near the hedge maze…or....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this second chapter took so long. I've been working on it off and on in my down time. October has been very busy for me. I do have plans for a 3rd chapter and hopefully more. I just need to figure out which fairy tale I want to wreak havoc with next. Hope you enjoyed the stories so far. :)


	3. "Rapunzel"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rapunzel - Hatchworth style (WARNING: this one gets a bit dark, esp towards the end, so trigger warning for depression, abuse, PTSD, and if you are bothered by dark subject matter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't read the chapter summary: WARNING: this one gets a bit dark, esp towards the end, so trigger warning for depression, abuse, PTSD, and if you are bothered by dark subject matter.

Rabbit’s shrieking had woken up the entire household after she had some sort of demented storybook nightmare. Zero pondered this as he wondered down the Walter Manor corridors. After being awoken, he found he couldn’t really go back into stasis. Ever since he had been reactivated and released from the sub-basement where his core had been powering parts of Walter Manor itself, he found some nights where he couldn’t go into stasis at all. When this happened, he found that walking the manor corridors helped. 

Zero had dreams sometimes when he did go into stasis. Not all of those dreams were good and some were so bad they would wake him and he wouldn’t be able to go into stasis for the rest of the night. He had two reoccurring bad dreams that particularly kept him awake at night. The first bad dream involved giant copper elephants crushing automatons under their heavy feet and being unable to scream or signal for help. The other bad dream took him back to the sub-basement having never been discovered and being alone, forgotten in a deep and very dark and dusty basement unable to move or leave his dark prison as his core was hooked up to the manor itself and him being nothing more than an oversized battery. Beebop saved him in more ways than one the day he found Zero. True it would be many years before Peter Walter V would also discover him and release him from his prison, but with Beebop, he at least had a friend to keep him company and wasn’t alone in his prison. That made all the difference, to not be forgotten. 

Zero never talked to anyone about the bad dreams though. He was embarrassed and thought the others would make fun of him. His other robotic brothers and sisters were SO BRAVE that he always assumed they never had bad dreams like the ones he had. It was certain that Rabbit had a bad dream of her own tonight. Maybe he had been mistaken thinking they didn’t have bad dreams too? He wondered how often she or the other robots had bad dreams like his if they did.

Zero rounded a corner and heard a slight hiss. His processor detected another automaton nearby. “Hello?” Zero called out into the darkened corridor. 

“Ah, hello Zero,” said Hatchworth stepping out of the shadows. “What brings you down this fine corridor at this hour?” 

“Oh hello Hatchworth,” said Zero, “I was just…uh…going for a walk.”

“It seems that exploring the manor would be better suited for the daytime,” said Hatchworth, “there is more light then…”

“Yeah, um…yeah you have a point there, but I was awake so I um, thought I’d just go for a walk right now instead of later,” said Zero.

“You should not be awake at this hour,” said Hatchworth. “As your big brother I feel it is my duty to stress upon you that a young robot such as yourself needs a good night’s worth of stasis.”

Zero raised his eyebrow at Hatchworth, “I’m only a few months younger than you, Hatchworth and we are both over a 100 years old…” “Well…if you count the years we were not active…um…that is…”

Hatchworth and Zero shared a look for a few moments. Neither of them spoke but each knew that they had shared a similar experience. Both had been locked away alone and forgotten for years before finally being rescued one day by one of the Walter descendants and brought back into the world of the “living”. 

“So…uh, what are YOU doing up walking around at this hour, “asked Zero to break the unspoken tension. “Don’t you need your stasis too?”

Hatchworth’s mustache twitched a little before answering, “some nights I find that it’s hard to stay in stasis so I either organize the kitchen refrigerator or I take a stroll.” “Since Mr. Reed has come to live in the manor, I don’t often get to organize the refrigerator anymore...” Hatchworth paused and then asked “are you having trouble staying in stasis, is that why you are also taking this late night stroll?”

Zero looked down at his hands and rubbed them together nervously before shyly answering, “yes…yes I do… and yeah that is why I was here in the corridor.”

Hatchworth peered at Zero for a moment or two before he smiled a big grin at Zero and said “well then allow me to accompany you.”

“Umm…sure…that would be ok, I guess,” said Zero.

They walked on for some time in silence. Zero noticed they seemed to be walking in the direction of one of the lower, less used corridors of the manor. Zero did a mental shrug and continued on.

After some time Hatchworth piped up again. “You know, I seem to remember reading somewhere that bedtime stories often helped one fall asleep,” he said, “perhaps one would help you go back into stasis.”

“Sure, it couldn’t hurt,” said Zero. “Do you know any good stories?”

Hatchworth smiled “yes, I think I know just the one…” and began to tell Zero a story as they walked.

(A long, long time ago…)

There once was a brilliant and noble King in the land of Balboa. King Walter also had a wonderful and brilliant wife, Queen Tonia. Together they had five beautiful daughters. The eldest Rabbitha was a prankster and silly. The second daughter, Spineiella was far too serious and sullen. The third daughter, Jonanna was…well… just weird. The youngest, Zeronia was sweet but often clueless. The fourth daughter, Hatchpunzel was perfect in every way. 

“Umm Hatchworth, those names sound awfully familiar,” said Zero, “is this a true story?”

Hatchworth peered at Zero over the top of his glasses and said “…no, but it is based on a true story.”

“Oh, okay,” said Zero as they continued on their walk.

The royal family lived happily in their Kingdom of Balboa. So did all of the inhabitants of the kingdom. There were seasonal badger hunts, soup diving competitions, and there was plentiful organic produce to be had and everyone was happy. Then one dark day the Queen fell ill and all the healers and doctors in the land could not heal her. 

“Ohhhh that’s sad,” said Zero.

“Indeed it was,” said Hatchworth, “for she was gravely ill and the King feared she would die.”

“Oh nooo, that’s terrible,” said Zero. Hatchworth nodded his head and continued the story.

The King was desperate for a solution to heal his beloved wife but didn’t know what to do. Hatchpunzel, being the wisest of all the daughters, knew exactly what would heal her mother but it involved a terrible risk. Late that night Hatchpunzel put on a hooded cloak and a fake mustache and snuck out of the castle and into the night. She walked for several miles but never got tired. This was not only because she was the fittest of all the daughters but also because of her magical fancy shoes which she put on just for this mission.

“Wow magical fancy shoes, that’s amazing,” said Zero. “How did she get them?”

“She got them for 50 large,” said Hatchworth nodding his head.

Zero furrowed his brow, “50 large, what?”

Hatchworth: “……”

Zero: “………???”

Hatchworth without bothering to answer the question, continued the story. Zero shrugged and continued to listen.

…Hatchpunzel finally reached a walled garden. She crept inside as quietly as she could and soon found what she was searching for. In the far corner of the garden grew parsley. This was no ordinary parsley of course for it was magical and had special healing properties. Hatchpunzel gathered up some into her basket and quickly exited the garden and left as quietly and quickly as she could. The reason was that she knew this garden was grown and kept by an evil witch and if she caught Hatchpunzel in her garden…well, Hatchpunzel didn’t want to think about it. There would surely be a terrible punishment. The evil witch had a reputation for being dramatic and would overreact at the slightest provocation. 

“Wait…isn’t she stealing parsley...isn't that bad?” asked Zero.

“Well normally yes but in circumstances like this, poor Hatchpunzel had no choice,” said Hatchworth.

“Couldn’t Hatchpunzel just ask the witch if she could have some of her parsley,” asked Zero. “Maybe she was just misunderstood and was actually really nice and would have given her some.”

Hatchworth shook his head, “oh no that would not have worked at all for the witch was horrid.” “She was bitter as she had been cursed to have a diminutive form and was nowhere near as fair as Hatchpunzel or her four sisters.” “She was hideous with oversized unnatural cold blue eyes, a long snout like nose, a head too large for her body that had two growths sprouting out the top that made her look like she had horns, gray skin, spindly legs which she appeared to walk on all fours as she was so bent over, and a high pitch voice that most found… rather annoying actually...” 

“Aww that poor witch, people shouldn’t be so mean and judge a person based on how they look,” said Zero.

“That is normally true,” said Hatchworth, “but this witch had the blackest of black hearts and really most of the kingdom found her really, REALLY, irritating…I mean just downright annoying; plus she was evil.” 

“Ohhhh…” said Zero.

Hatchpunzel made her way back to the castle without encountering the evil witch and rushed to the kitchen. Once in the kitchen Hatchpunzel made a parsley sandwich, which she then boiled down into a healing broth. She fed this to her mother and to everyone’s relief her mother was fully healed by day break.

The Kingdom rejoiced over the Queens recovery. Hatchpunzel, not wanting to worry her parents, did not tell them where she got the parsley or how she was able to heal her mother. Everything seemed fine until a month later during the Kingdom-wide D&D championship. King Walter had just rolled a natural 20 when darkness was cast over the court. Smoke and lightning formed in the center of the court and out trotted the hideous form of the evil witch!

The assembled citizens recoiled in horror but the King, being brave and stoic as he was, showed no fear. He asked the evil witch why she was there. The evil witch opened her snout and in her sickeningly high squeaky voice she corrected the King and told him that he should treat her with respect and that her name was GiGi. 

“GiGi, don’t you mean G.G.” asked Zero

Hatchworth turned and briefly looked at him with a slight smile. “No the witch’s name was GiGi, not G.G.”

“But…but that sounds awfully close to G.G. and the way you described her sounded exactly like…” said Zero as Hatchworth quickly cut him off.

“NOPE, just a coincidence,” said Hatchworth. Zero noticed the smile broaded across Hatchworth’s face into something almost mischievious.

“Umm…okay…” said Zero. 

Good King Walter asked the witch why he should treat a creature as foul as her with such respect. GiGi the witch shook her head at him and told him that considering someone of HIS family had STOLEN from her, it was the least he could do. The King’s mouth dropped open in shock. GiGi the witch took the opportunity to continue talking, as she was oft to do. She told the entire court that a month prior someone had broken into her magical garden where she grew rare and magical herbs and stolen special healing parsley. The citizens and even Hatchpunzel’s sisters looked around at each other in confusion but the King and the Queen both knew at once who the intruder had to have been. The King tried to cover for Hatchpunzel and told GiGi the witch that she had come there under false pretenses and had no proof anyone there had stolen from her. At this GiGi the witch reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out a few bright red hairs. The same color as Hatchpunzel’s hair. The court gasped in shock as they all knew there was only one person who’s hair that could be for Hatchpunzel was famous for her luxurious ginger locks. Many people in the kingdom were quite envious of her hair.

“…Wait just a minute…”said Zero with a tone of suspicion

Hatchworth turned and looked at him over the top of his glasses.

“How would the witch even get those strands of hair?!!...and…and …a few strands wouldn’t make much evidence!” cried Zero.

Hatchworth grinned and continued with the story.

The King told GiGi the witch that the hair was no proof and that she could have gotten them anywhere. GiGi the witch huffed and reached into her cloak pocket again and pulled out a video tape and said that she had CCTV footage of Hatchpunzel wearing a fake mustache and cloak, sneaking into her garden. The witch had installed security cameras around the garden a few years before. The King thought this was mighty anachronistic of the witch because who even HAD security cameras back in the middle-ages; but he couldn’t deny the evidence now. GiGi the witch went on to further explain that the video even showed how the few strands of hair were left in her garden when Hatchpunzel had accidently brushed against a thorny bush.

The entire court gasped and began to shout angrily at the witch in defense of Hatchpunzel for Hatchpunzel was so beloved by everyone…even those who were totes jelly of her hair.

“Ohhhh that explains that,” said Zero. “But they can’t just let the witch punish Hatchpunzel!”

“I’m afraid Zero that even in fairy tales there is a consequence for every action,” said Hatchworth sadly.

“Oh noo…” said Zero quietly.

Hatchpunzel knew she had been caught and knew she must suffer the consequences for her actions. She knew if she didn’t offer herself up that the witch might harm the people of her kingdom or even her family. She could not risk the safety and well-being of so many just to save herself from a punishment that rightfully she deserved. If she did not give herself up to the witch she would be a danger to those she loved. Hatchpunzel stepped forward and confessed to taking the parsley before anyone could say another word. 

Witch GiGi laughed delightedly and told Hatchpunzel to come forward to her. Hatchpunzel’s family tried to stop her and begged her not to go to the witch but she told them that she must do this as she was now a danger to her family and kingdom and it was the consequence for breaking into the witch’s garden. Once Hatchpunzel got close, witch GiGi reached out and took her hand. The witch cackled loudly and said to all those in the court that this was the last time they would ever see Hatchpunzel and promptly disappeared with her in a cloud of smoke and lightening.

One moment Hatchpunzel had been standing with the witch in court and the next she was in a small dark room with a stone floor. GiGi the witch released Hatchpunzel and told her that since she had taken something precious away from her that she was now taking something precious away from her and her kingdom. The witch told Hatchpunzel that they were in a room high atop a remote and distant tower. Hatchpunzel’s fate was to be locked in this tower forever. The news rocked Hatchpunzel to her core but she did not cry and refused to show any emotion toward her plight to the witch. She would at least not give her the satisfaction of knowing how scared Hatchpunzel was at that moment. GiGi the witch explained to Hatchpunzel that she would visit her periodically and give her a ration of gruel and fill the cistern of water. Hatchpunzel noticed the cistern was not very large and wondered how often the witch was planning on returning. The witch disappeared in the same fashion they arrived without another word. Hatchpunzel continued to look around the tower room and noticed that aside from an empty ceramic pot with a spoon next to it and the small cistern, there wasn’t anything else in the dark room. It was just a room with one window that somehow offered very little light to the room. Hatchpunzel walked over to the wall facing the window and slid down to sit on the floor staring at what little she could see out the window. A tear slowly tracked down her face.

“Poor Hatchpunzel!” Zero exclaimed.

Hatchworth offered a slight sad smile and said “yes…indeed.”

The kingdom was in a state of panic over the loss of their favorite princess. The King and his soldiers scoured the land trying to find the witch or Hatchpunzel. All searches turned up nothing.

The witch returned to the tower several days later. By then Hatchpunzel was so hungry and starving she barely had energy to rise from the floor. The gruel the witch brought was bland and sludge-like but Hatchpunzel ate every speck. After the witch left Hatchpunzel was careful to ration what gruel was left and her water. She had very little to get her through the days. There was nothing to do; nothing to occupy her time. All she had was the window and she passed the next week staring at it watching the light brighten with the rise of the sun and it fade away again at dusk. 

The night times were the worst. Hatchpunzel sat alone in pitch dark almost too afraid to sleep some nights. Over time the witch started to come less and less. Hatchpunzel was a shell of her former self and her hair had grown down the entire length of her back and got longer with each passing week. She wondered if the witch would one day fail to ever return. Hatchpunzel had mixed feelings about that. She did not regret taking the punishment to protect her family and kingdom or taking the witch’s parsley to save her mother but drifting off into a dream to never wake up and leaving this torment behind was becoming appealing. Finally one day the witch arrived and did not bring any gruel or water but instead pulled a small vial of liquid out of her basket. Hatchpunzel stared at it with apprehension from where she was slumped down on the floor nearly too weak to move. The witch quickly explained that she had little time and would not be coming to see Hatchpunzel ever again. Hatchpunzel smiled a sad smile. The witch walked over to Hatchpunzel and tipped the vial of liquid into her mouth. The witch went on to explain that the King was still searching for Hatchpunzel and nearly caught her. GiGi the witch believed she would eventually be followed and they would find the tower and Hatchpunzel. She could not let that happen so she could not return anymore. The liquid in the vial was a special potion that the witch had used every last plant in her garden to make. It would render Hatchpunzel immortal. She would no longer require food or drink and could never die. The horror sunk in for Hatchpunzel as she felt the potion restoring her. She would literally be in this tower FOREVER. With one last quick look back at Hatchpunzel that showed no remorse, the witch left the tower never to return. 

Zero put his hand over his mouth in horror. “That is awful! Poor Hatchpunzel!”

“Indeed, there are some fates worse than death and poor Hatchpunzel now found herself in one,” said Hatchworth.

Zero’s lip quivered as an oily tear tracked down his cheek.

Hatchworth looked around for a moment. “We are almost near the end of our walk and also near the end of this story.” 

For years and years Hatchpunzel sat alone in the dark tower. Her hair had grown to such a length that it nearly filled the room. Many days Hatchpunzel would let her mind wander. She imagined fantastic places filled with impossible creatures. It was the only thing she could do to pass her time. She had long since memorized every inch of scenery outside the window and it no longer provided any relief from the long hours of monotony. Hatchpunzel’s mind drifted off into these imaginary lands so often that after a time it became hard for her to distinguish what was real and what she had imagined. Maybe she had imagined this tower? Maybe she wasn’t actually locked alone in this dark room and was actually lying in that lush field of green grass as the sun smiled down at her from overhead. Maybe there really was a strange winged creature wearing trousers flying up there as well. Sure, why not… 

80 some years passed with Hatchpunzel locked alone in the desolate tower until one day she heard a voice. At first she wasn’t sure if she imagined it because her reality and imagination had long since bled together. Hatchpunzel slowly raised herself from her sitting position on the floor opposite the window. She was stiff almost as if she had rusted in place from sitting there so long. She slowly moved toward the window and peered out. Below was a young man and a horse. He appeared to be searching around as he led his horse by its reigns. He put his hand to his mouth and called out “HELLO?” once again. Hatchpunzel at first couldn’t get her voice to work as her throat had become dry from years of disuse. Why talk when you had no one to talk to? She finally managed to call out a hello in response.

The young man looked up to the tower window and his mouth fell open in amazement. So the legend was true! He raised one hand and waved up at Hatchpunzel and asked if she was Hatchpunzel. Hatchpunzel could hardly believe her ears. At first she nodded her head slowly to say yes but realizing he probably couldn’t see her do so from that far up she called down a broken “yes”.

The young man looked very excited by her response and immediately started running around the tower. When he could not find a door he looked up appraisingly at its height. He frowned for a moment and went and searched through his saddle bag. His search apparently did not turn up anything useful so he slowly approached the base of the tower again and called up to Hatchpunzel that he was going to rescue her but he did not have any way up to her and he did not have enough rope to climb to the window. He told her that he would return to his home and get more rope. 

Hatchpunzel’s heart was pounding. No! He couldn’t leave! What if he left and never returned like the witch! Hatchpunzel did not want to spend another 80 years alone in the tower let alone another minute! She looked desperately around her room that had been her prison for so many years. There was nothing there really except for yards and yards and yards of her hair nearly filling the room…HER HAIR! “WAIT!” she called down to the young man and pleaded for him not to leave. She told him she had a plan. 

The young man stood at the base of the tower momentarily confused before a waterfall of brilliant red hair came falling out the window. Inside the tower Hatchpunzel had climbed up onto a ceiling rafter and jumped down. She then walked back and did the same again and again until a good section of her hair was secured by the rafter. She went over to the window and called down to the young man and told him to use her hair to climb the tower. The young man looked the cascade of hair up and down and called back up that he was afraid he would hurt her if he tried. She called back and told him that it would not and urged him on to climb. The young man took the hair in his hands and braced one foot on the wall of the tower. Slowly he scaled the entire tower and climbed in through the window. When he was finally inside the tower he looked around in shock. There was still yards and yards of hair inside the tower! He was snapped out of his shock as Hatchpunzel ran over to him and quickly dropped to her knees in front of him and pleaded for him take her away from this tower. The man nodded solemly and after surveying the room he drew his sword out of its scabbard. He walked over to where Hatchpunzel had wrapped her hair around the ceiling rafter and tugged on it experimentally. Being satisfied with how secure it was he took his sword and cut through Hatchpunzel’s hair at about the length of where it fell at her mid back, freeing her from the rafter. He told her to climb onto his back and hold tight as he climbed back down the tower.

The entire ride back to the young man’s home kingdom, which turned out to be her same home kingdom, felt like a dream. Hatchpunzel nearly convinced herself that she was still having one of her daydreams as they road through the gates leading to the castle. As the young man took her hand and led her into the castle she followed him as if in a dream. The next thing she saw was her sisters running towards her crying her name. Yes, she was definitely in a dream she thought sadly…

Hatchpunzel’s sisters were overcome with joy to see her finally returned. They surrounded her and hugged her all as one. The hug felt very warm and REAL. None of her dreams had felt THIS real. Hatchpunzel slowly blinked her eyes as she looked at each of them. She finally said to them that she did not understand, she had been locked away for so long, how could her sisters be here and look pretty much the same (save for a few years older) than when she last saw them. Spineiella, who loved to explain things to people, stepped forward and told her how after several years of searching for her the sisters had each agreed that they didn’t want to pass from this earth without seeing their beloved sister again. They each wanted to continue the search until she was found and keep her memory alive in the meantime. They sought out a wise and kindly Wizard who also made made a potion that made them immortal as well. They told Hatchpunzel that sadly their Father and Mother had passed away many years ago but the young man who had rescued her from the tower was the current heir to the throne, Prince Walter VI. They also told her that evil witch GiGi had apparently been apprehended not long after her final visit to the tower. The only information they could get from her was that Hatchpunzel was locked away in a tower for all eternity as she had made it so she could not die and that they would never find her. She never would confess the location of the tower and never did up until they burned her at the stake for her evil deeds.

It took Hatchpunzel several years to recover from her ordeal. Her lucidity finally returned, more or less, and she acclimated well to the new era she found herself now living in. She even picked up music as a hobby and a way to sooth her soul. She never regretted what she did to help her mother and she never regretted sacrificing herself to protect her family and kingdom but she would be a liar if she said they ordeal had not left its mark on her. Not always in a bad way though. She found she took time to appreciate the little things in life and appreciate the ones you love while you had them in your life.

Zero’s tears were streaming down his face so thick that he had barely noticed they had stopped walking. He looked around at first confused why Hatchworth would walk to this old disused section of the manor, but then he saw it.

Hatchworth stood next to Zero outside the rusty open door to a very old vault. “And this was my tower” said Hatchworth.

Zero looked at Hatchworth and nodded. The vault, it had been Hatchworth's prison, his "tower'. “So that story really was you then, wasn’t it?”

Hatchworth continued to stare into the empty dark vault for a moment before turning to Zero and putting on an impish grin and saying “Nah…it was just a story.” The tone he said it in had tried to be playful but Zero could hear the pain behind it as he noticed the oily sheen in Hatchworth’s eyes. 

Zero walked over to Hatchworth and without saying anything hugged him. “I understand buddy, we both had our towers.”

Hatchworth wiped at his eye before saying “yes, we did, I brought you here so you could see.”

“See your vault” asked Zero, “I don’t understand…”

Hatchworth gave a small sigh. It was not a sigh of impatience but one of someone pushing down emotion when it was starting to overwhelm them. “This is what keeps me from stasis some nights,” Hatchworth confessed. “You and I have very similar experiences.” “Yes the other robots all have their own tragedy and horrific experiences, but they haven’t experienced being shut away in the dark and forgotten about for years.” “I wanted to show you this place and tell you that story so you would understand that you are not alone.” “I know your nightmares wake you up from stasis and you have started taking walks around the manor to cope.” "I know you are probably too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it." “I did the same myself after I came out of the vault.” “I want you to know that you have another robot who understands what you have gone through and I am here if you ever want to talk or need a walking buddy.” Hatchworth looked up at Zero and gave a genuine warm smile. 

Zero smiled back, “yeah…yeah I would like that a lot.” They both turned away from the vault and started walking back in the opposite direction toward the inhabited and more modern sections of the manor. Zero smiled over at Hatchworth,”…and Thank you.”

Hatchworth smiled and replied “no problem.”


	4. Pete's Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something strange afoot at Walter Manor. Peter thinks he's seen a monster but everyone else thinks he's just imagining things. When Snowball goes missing Peter fears the worst as the household goes searching for the lost kitty. Will they find Snowball? Will Peter ever get enough sleep? Does Steve have something to hide? Does this summary have too many questions?

Peter Walter VI lay staring at the blue lights from his blue matter void dancing on the ceiling above his bed. He sighed as he had been staring up at the lights for at least the last hour with no sleep in sight. He had managed to get a couple hours of sleep last night but had suddenly awoken a couple hours before dawn and just COULD NOT fall back to sleep. Surviving on less than 6 hours of sleep a night was nothing new to him but he got significantly less this night. Not just from waking early and not being able to go back to sleep but also from being awoken earlier in the night by a disturbingly loud screaming robot. He now ranked “screaming robot” right up there with ten unnerving sounds you didn’t want to awaken to in the middle of the night. The screaming had turned out to be originating from Rabbit after she had a nightmare. After seeing to her and making sure she was alright, he was able to go back to sleep …eventually…but he didn’t stay asleep for very long. Why, oh why couldn’t his brain have shut off and allowed him to get more sleep this night? He needed to talk to the zoo today about the damages to the theater and being coherent with enough sleep would have helped out a lot. *sigh*

“Mow”…

Peter looked towards the foot of his bed. Across his bedroom sat Snowball staring at him… “Mow”… Well he supposed that was his wakeup call. Snowball needed his breakfast and you didn’t want to put off feeding oversized kitties when they’re hungry. He thought of Snowball as being a harmless housecat, albeit an extremely large one, but he just didn’t want to risk it. Better off to feed Snowball before the Walter Workers started to look like tasty oversized lab mice to the hungry kitty. 

Peter sat up and grabbed his keyhole mask from the bedside table and put it on. “Come on Snowball, let’s get you some nom-noms.”

“Mow”….

“Who’s a good kitty?”

“Mow”…

“Damn right.”

Peter didn’t feel like taking the time to put the saddle on Snowball so he walked ahead of his oversized cat, leading it down the hallways. At least the hallways looked clean; cleaner than they had in a long time. He hadn’t noticed in his panic to find the screaming robot as he jogged through the hallways last night. Rabbit and Zero had done an impressive job. He’d have to take that into consideration when coming up with their punishment for wrecking the theater. 

Eh, who was he kidding? He knew he wasn’t going to PUNISH-punish the robots. He’d probably at worse have G.G. write lines of “playing with wrecking balls are naughty for baby giraffes” a hundred times or so. Really, being a robot, that would be nothing for her. The others he’d probably just have them do an extra show or two to help pay for the damages. Oh well, so long as they THOUGHT he was going to give them a punishment maybe that would help keep them out of trouble and make them think twice before pulling future shenanigans. Peter yawned.

Yeah…but really…who was he kidding? The fear of punishment never stopped them before. It just seemed to be part of who they were. They had pulled stuff like that since the first day their boilers were fired up. Well except maybe one. The only one who ever remotely seemed well behaved was The Spine. But then again, according to Rabbit, The Spine was built with a stick up his posterior vent. 

Peter snickered.

Man, this was a long walk. Even though he had lived in Walter Manor his whole life, he was still sometimes surprised by how it just seemed to go on, and on, AND ON… It didn’t help that he was groggy. Peter almost stumbled into another piece of furniture for the 3rd time. He yawned, shook his head and continued on.

As he passed the 7th sitting room he happened to look in and see Hatchworth and Zero leaned against each other in stasis on one of the reinforced couches. Weird, Zero and Hatchworth each had their own room, he wondered how they’d ended up in there.

Peter neared the dormitory wing of the Manor. He had to pass through it in order to get to the lab that had the portal to the 8th dimension. As he shuffled past door-less doorways he could see a lot of the Walter Workers and staff asleep in their beds. It was still really early. He wouldn’t be up himself if he had been able to actually stay asleep. *YAWN*…

Peter passed by Matter Master David’s room. Ah, it looks like he got a new gaming computer. In Matter Mistress Bunny’s room he saw she had been working on some artwork again. That was good, he thought to himself. From the artwork he’d seen she was really talented. It was nice that his workers had interests outside of work. He smiled.

Peter neared the doorway of one of his newer employees. Steve had come onboard relatively recently, mostly to help out with the band. He had some mechanical knowledge and said he wanted to learn more about robotics. Having someone trained as a backup tech on the road never hurt, so Peter had hired him on the spot. Steve had a surprisingly diverse and useful set of skills aside from the mechanical. He was great with a soundboard which helped out during concerts and he could help with the grunt work of hauling instruments and equipment back and forth. He was surprisingly strong. Peter had seen Steve lift and easily carry pieces of equipment that usually The Spine had to lift as it was too heavy for anyone else, except maybe another automaton. This always puzzled Peter. Steve did have muscles but the math just didn’t add up. There was just no way that a human should be able to lift anything that heavy by themselves with seemingly little effort. Steve was a likeable enough guy and all, but Peter had always felt like there was something off about him. Not necessarily a bad thing but there was just something about Steve that seemed out of the ordinary. Peter laughed to himself, maybe Steve was secretly an automaton.

Peter looked into Steve’s room as he was walking past and froze in place. Steve had put up a curtain in his bedroom doorway for privacy but he hadn’t pulled it all the way closed the night before. There was a seam in the curtain that showed just enough of Steve’s room to see the bed. Only… that wasn’t Steve lying on the bed. There was something on the bed…but it wasn’t human. It also didn’t appear to be the entire…whatever it was. It looked like just a tail and the tail was covered in shiny red and orange triangular scales. 

He had to be seeing things! Peter shook his head hard and looked again. There was still just a giant tail of SOMETHING covered in scales lying across the bed! Peter leaned in more toward the seam in the curtain to try to get a better look. There HAD to be a logical explanation for this!

At just that moment Snowball’s fur poofed up and the giant cat began to growl at the curtain. When the cat let out a hiss something large bobbed up in front of the other side of the curtain. All Peter could see was one big yellow eye! It had a slit pupil like a cat’s eye and he could see it dilate as it focused on him!

Peter wasn’t sure at what point he had actually made the decision to run. The next thing he knew he was past the 7th sitting room and booking it FAST down the hall in the opposite direction of the dormitory wing. He wasn’t sure which direction Snowball had went. 

Peter reached the Hall of Wires. It was one of the last rooms in the manor to actually have a door. Better yet, a door that locked! Peter skidded into the room and slammed the door behind him, locking it. He leaned against the door trying to catch his breath. WHAT WAS THAT THING??!!!

“Peter?” A deep voice called from the wires overhead.

Peter couldn’t answer as he was still trying to catch his breath. Mother had told him he really needed to get out and exercise more...

“Peter, are you ok?” A wire descended from the ceiling and The Spine’s head slithered down it to Peter’s eye level. The Spine looked over Peter with a worried expression. 

*Gasp*….*gasp*….”LARGE!”…*gasp*…”SCALES!”…*gasp*…”YELLOW EYES!”…*gasp*…*gasp*…

The Spine raised an eyebrow at him, “Peter, have you been playing with the portal again…?”

*Gasp*…”NO!”…*GASP*…”WORKERS WING”…*GASP*…”MONSTER!”…

The Spine frowned at Peter. “Try to calm down and catch your breath Peter, I’m going to get back in my body.” The Spine slithered back up into the Wires before descending from the ceiling by a metal arm as his body rose from the floor to meet him. Once his head was reconnected to his body, he straightened his tie and walked over to Peter who had slid down and was now sitting on the floor in front of the door, slowly catching his breath.

 

“Now what’s all this about a monster?” asked The Spine

“In the dormitory wing,” Peter shouted, “there was something large… yellow eyes…well I actually only saw the one eye…there were scales!!!…”

The Spine frowned at Peter, “that doesn’t sound normal even for this Manor…maybe I should go check it out…”

“SPINE…I think…I think it got Steve!” 

“Did you see it attack Steve?!,” The Spine asked, alarmed.

“Well no…but it was in his room!” Peter dragged his hands down his mask trying to compose himself. “Spine, we got to do something before it eats the other workers!”

“Ok Peter, I’ll go check it out,” said The Spine, “you stay right here and don’t open the door until I come back.” 

Peter shuffled on his butt across the floor out of the way of the door. The Spine reached for the doorknob but before he could even grasp it, a knock came at the door.

Peter and The Spine looked at each other before The Spine called out “who is it?”

“Hey, it’s me Steve…why’s the door locked…open up.”

The Spine unlocked the door and opened it. A bedraggled Steve stood out in the hallway wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a Captain Jack Sparrow t-shirt.

“Steve, you’re ok!” said The Spine.

Steve rubbed his eye. “Well, why wouldn’t I be?”

Peter sputtered from where he still sat on the floor, “m…monster…IN YOUR BEDROOM!!”

Steve pegged Peter with a confused look. “umm noooo…no monster in MY bedroom…I think I’d be the first to notice something like that, seeing as it’s my room and all…”

“B-b-but…I saw it…HUGE… with scales…yellow eye” stammered Peter.

Steve laughed, “no man…nothing out of the ordinary in MY room, although I was woken up by the sound of someone loudly running down the hallway outside my bedroom door.” “I stuck my head out to see what was going on and saw your backside running as fast as you could down the hallway like you were being chased or something so I figured I better see what the problem was. I couldn’t catch up to you but I saw you run into the HOW.”

The Spine looked from Steve to Peter with an eyebrow raised.

“But…I saw it…I know I did…,” cried Peter

Steve gave a little laugh, “sorry, no monster in my room Peter.”

“But…wait…SNOWBALL!...Snowball saw it too and he hissed at it and ran off too...” said Peter

“I haven’t seen your cat, Peter,” said Steve.

“Peter are you SURE you saw a monster?” asked The Spine skeptically.

“I KNOW WHAT I SAW!” cried Peter.

Steve laughed, “I think someone has been watching too many monster flicks.”

“I haven’t been watching any monster movies! I haven’t had time, what with getting woken up last night by a screaming robot and …*yawn*…that disaster at the Zoo and trying to figure out how I’m gonna fix everything with them, and that’s on top of all the other things I have to deal with just being the head of Walter Robotics!”

The Spine was well aware of Peter being prone to anxiety induced insomnia but he seemed worse than usual. He did a quick scan of Peter and the results weren’t good. “Peter, exactly how much sleep did you get last night?”

“I dunno…I…*yawn*…I think maybe 2 hours…”

The Spine frowned. “And how much sleep did you get this week?”

“I dunno…maybe 4 hours a night…except last night” said Peter.

“Well that’s probably what caused it right there; he’s hallucinating from sleep deprivation!” said Steve.

“I don’t hallucinate!” said Peter with indignation.

The Spine gave Peter a gentle smile and offered his hand, pulling Peter to his feet. “Peter, you don’t get much sleep most nights and last night you got even less than usual. Sleep deficit and stress have been known to cause hallucinations in some people. If it will make you feel better, I’ll go check out the dormitory wing just to make sure but you should really go back to bed and try to get some more rest.”

Peter had begrudgingly went to his room and crawled back into his bed. He knew he had seen what he’d seen. It was no hallucination! He had refused to leave the HOW until The Spine was done with his search of the dormitory wing. He found nothing, of course. How could a monster that large just disappear? For that matter where was Snowball? The Spine said they’d keep a lookout for his cat but ended up walking Peter to his bedroom like he was a petulant child. Annie said she’d take care of the business with the Zoo while Peter got more rest. That made it even worse, not only did at least two people in the house already think he was losing it and hallucinating monsters, but now his own Mother had to take over and handle something that had been deemed “too much for him right now”. Peter flopped over onto his side and grumbled. 

As Peter lay staring at the opposite wall of his bedroom he noticed the light in the room had subtly shifted without him noticing until just then. It was 9am and well past sun-up but his bedroom had grown dark and had an almost eerie green glow to everything. Peter sat up and scratched his head. “Huh…that’s funny…”

Peter’s attention snapped to his doorway when he heard an odd noise that seemed to be coming down the hallway, approaching his room. It sounded like a scraping sound followed by a thud…scraaaape, THUD, scraaaape, THUD, scraaaape THUD... 

“What in the name of science?!” 

A shadow out in the hallway crept over the floor just outside the doorway. It grew until it blocked out the light entirely. Whatever was casting the shadow had to be enormous!

Peter pulled the blankets up to his neck and sat there transfixed at the doorway. The scraping sound followed by the thud was right by the edge of the doorway. His bed at started to slightly vibrate with each nearing THUD. 

Peter watched in horror as a red and orange scaled claw, tipped with long black dagger-like nails, reached around from out in the hallway and gripped the side of the doorway. 

Peter started trembling but seemed unable to break his trance of staring at the doorway in his abject horror. The claw remained on the doorframe and he could now hear something heavily breathing out in the hallway. Whatever this thing was, paused for a moment and sounded as though it was sniffing the air. Then it made a low pitch rumbling growl. Peter whimpered but seemed unable to move and unable to stop staring at the doorway even though he very much wanted to not see whatever it was and run away as fast as he could.

A snout lined with sharp teeth rounded the doorway followed by yellow eyes. Yellow eyes…red and orange scales?... IT WAS THE MONSTER HE’D SEEN IN THE DORMITORY WING! A scream caught in Peter’s throat as the creature moved fully in front of the door frame. It was huge and hulking and bigger than his doorframe. Good, maybe it couldn’t fit in the door.

Peter had the fleeting thought that this creature looked exactly like what you’d expect a dragon out of a fairy tale book to look it if it suddenly materialized into reality. It stood outside the doorway staring at Peter with its sinister yellow eyes. Peter remained frozen in fear. Peter’s eyes drifted across other features of the creature from its armored belly, tail, and what appeared to be a chewed up oversized cat collar dangling from one of its claws. SNOWBALL!!! IT HAD EATEN SNOWBALL!!!

It seemed as though as soon as Peter had noticed the collar, the dragon decided to charge. The door frame splintered and broke as the dragon barreled through it and charged straight at Peter. Peter screamed out in terror. He finally managed to break free from his trance and jumped back and fell out of the bed tangled in his blankets. CRAP! He had to run!...to escape!!!

Peter screamed and screamed as he desperately tried to free himself from the tangle of blankets, expecting at any moment to be devoured by long razor sharp teeth and claws. He felt something grab ahold of his leg near his ankle and he screamed even louder trying to kick back at the dragon to make it let him go. He felt his foot connect and felt it hit something very solid but the dragon didn’t give up. It simply latched onto him again, this time by his shoulder and shook him. Peter fought and kicked but was unable to break its hold on him. He could feel its hot smoky breath close to the back of his neck!

“NO!!! NO I DON’T WANT TO DIE!!!” Peter screamed as he continued to try to fight his way free from the dragon’s grip 

“Peter…PETER!!!!”

Huh? Peter turned over and looked at the being that was standing over him. His eyes slowly focused and he saw The Spine’s face come into view. He was leaning over Peter and squinting like something hurt his photoreceptors. Oh…right. Peter reached over and grabbed his mask off the bedside table and put it on.

“Let me guess…you were having a nightmare,” said The Spine . 

“Um yeah, how did you know?” asked Peter.

“Well the screaming and thrashing around on the floor tipped me off…” said The Spine…”also seems to be becoming something of a trend in this house lately…”

“Heh…oh yeah, right” said Peter. “I hope I didn’t disturb the whole manor.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure I woke you up before you got too loud” said The Spine. 

Peter was glad his face was covered by his mask so The Spine couldn’t see him blush from embarrassment.

The Spine reached down and offered his hand and pulled Peter up from the floor.

“Thanks for helping me off the floor Spine,” said Peter as The Spine hoisted him to his feet.

“That also seems to be becoming a trend,” said The Spine. “I didn’t really hear you screaming until I got to the end of the hallway, I was on my way up to wake you up anyway.”

“Oh?” said Peter. “Did something happen?”

“It’s about Snowball” said The Spine with a small frown. “We searched the manor for him like you asked. We didn’t find him Peter, but we…uh…did find one of the door frames leading to the back of the manor busted out as if something large had passed through it in a hurry and Snowball’s torn collar was found hanging off one of the garden shrubs that had been half ripped out of the ground. There were giant paw prints in the garden mud heading away from the manor.” “Peter, it seems Snowball is loose somewhere outside.”

“Oh…” Peter stood there for a moment, grateful that his cat apparently hadn’t been eaten by a dragon and in another second terrified because liability for a giant house cat the size of Snowball loose outside could be enormous. Peter could just imagine the torch and pitchfork armed mob descending on Walter Manor after Snowball got hungry and ate a school bus or something. “Spine!…we got to find him!!…we can’t let him get off the Manor grounds..wha…what if Snowball accidently hurts someone…or worse!!!” “He’s pretty much still just a kitten and I haven’t even finished training him!”

“…You can’t really train a cat, Peter…” said The Spine.

“Nonsense, he was making good progress on his litterbox training,” said Peter.

“Yeah…about that…well never mind, but you should probably talk to Norman about why the Hall of Hamburgers is currently closed off with biohazard tape…” said The Spine. “Anyway, we formed search parties and the other robots and most of the staff are currently outside searching.”

 

“Egads, …and yeah I’ll ask Norman about that later,” said Peter. Peter walked over to his closet and started pulling clothes out. “I better get out there and help find Snowball, he must still be really scared.”

The Spine tipped his head to the side and frowned, “scared of what though Peter, there was no monster.”

Peter stomped down the stairs and toward the manor’s back doorway. He’d just wasted a good 20 minutes arguing with the Spine over whether he had actually seen a creature that morning in the worker’s dormitory. Peter was now fairly certain he had seen a dragon, but decided telling the Spine this would be pretty pointless since he didn’t believe he had seen anything in the first place. The Spine asserted that Peter had either had a lucid dream or had hallucinated the whole thing due to his “sleep deprivation.” Peter scoffed. Sure he had been tired and yeah maybe he could have used a little more sleep but he was a Walter! Walters did some of their best work on only a couple hours of sleep. They were made of tough stuff. As for hallucinating, that was just offensive. The Spine might as well have questioned his sanity! The nerve! When Peter said to The Spine “yeah, but if there wasn’t a monster in the dormitory wing this morning, then why did Snowball run off?” The Spine replied that Snowball must have been spooked when SOMEONE had suddenly decided to run like a maniac down the Manor hallways screaming like a little girl and claiming to have seen a monster. After that comment, Peter had briefly mentally gone over The Spine’s schematics in his head to decide which would quickest way to dismantle him. Instead he stomped into his boots and headed towards the closest exit to the back of the manor. 

Peter stepped out into the sunlight and squinted…ugh bright! Mother had said he should get outside more. Was the sun always this bright? His eyes adjusted and the first thing he saw was Snowball’s collar hanging off the nearby shrub. Snowball…

Peter looked around for any of the other search parties but couldn’t see anyone. Well, the manor grounds are quite large and partially wooded, he might as well start searching by himself. Maybe he’d run into one of the other members of the manor household later.

Peter found the paw prints in the mud and roughly guessed the direction Snowball had been running. Yup, straight into the dark and *not-at-all threatening* woods. Ah well, at least he could stop squinting from the sun in there. 

Two hours later Peter again got whacked in the mask by a low hanging twiggy branch. He didn’t remember the woods being this dense and dark. He had thought of giving up but he found a white tuft of fur caught on bramble bush. Snowball was definitely out here…somewhere. Peter stopped and looked around. He couldn’t see the sun from this deep in the woods and had no idea how far away from the manor he’d walked. Was he even still on the Walter estate? Oddly he never encountered any of the other search parties during the last two hours either. 

“Snowball…here kitty, kitty,” Peter called. There was no response. With a sigh Peter reached into his trouser pocket. “Ok…I didn’t want to play it this way Snowball but you leave me no choice.” Peter pulled out a gnarled stuffed animal that used to resemble a mouse and gave a squeeze. *squeaky* *squeaky*. “Here kitty, kitty…I have your favorite chew toy…” In truth this wasn’t the original. Peter had bought a crate of these things as Snowball had actually swallowed a few whole. The mangled, cat-drool-encrusted, squeaky mouse the size of a guinea pig was just the current survivor. For a while Rabbit had run a betting pool on how long each mouse would survive before Snowball destroyed or swallowed it. Peter had to put an end to it when Zero got a little too emotionally invested in one of the squeaky mouse toys he’d been betting on.

There was a crackle of twigs being broken in the woods nearby. The few bird that had been singing in the branches over-head, went quiet. “Snowball?...is that you?” 

There was no response, nor was there any more sound or movement in the woods. Peter stood still and listened carefully. “Snowball,” Peter called out again but still nothing. Peter crept in the direction he had heard the sound. He found where something had stepped on the twigs and broken them but there was no sign of anything. Peter sighed in frustration. He looked around the woods again but didn’t see anything or anyone in the woods in any direction. Maybe he should throw in the towel and head back to the manor before it got dark…only…which way was the manor?

Peter turned in circles but couldn’t figure out which direction he’d come from. Damnit, why didn’t he think to grab a compass or GPS or SOMETHING! He’d remembered the stupid squeaky mouse but not something that would have been useful in navigating his way back. Hell even a bread crumb trail would have helped, now he was lost deep in some gnarly woods. Peter’s breathing started increasing as he could feel a panic attack coming on. “No…no Peter” he said to himself, “remember what Mother told you…you’re smart you can figure this out…” Peter looked around at the trees again. Hmm, wasn’t there an old saying that moss only grew on the north side of trees? Well since the sun was to his left when he exited Walter manor earlier that evening and it was traveling toward the west, then based on this moss on the tree here Walter manor should be in *that* direction. Peter smiled to himself. “See, you’re smart, you figured it out!” Peter grinned and confidently headed in the direction toward Walter Manor.

Three more hours passed and now Peter was even deeper in the woods and nowhere near Walter Manor. At first he didn’t understand how his calculations had gone wrong until he realized that moss grew on whatever side of the tree it damn well pleased when he walked between two trees with moss on opposing sides. That’s the last time he trusted a Boy Scout manual from the 1950’s in a Walter Manor library!

He was utterly lost now, not sure if he was even on Walter property anymore, not sure how to get home or out of these woods and it was getting dark fast. Worse yet, Peter had started to feel more and more like he was being followed. Something was watching him. There was nothing that really indicated someone else was there but he just felt like something was out there watching and following him. It was getting harder and harder to tamp down his impending panic attack. 

This was NOT the time to panic. Peter needed to think. Peter sat down on a fallen tree to catch his breath and figure out what he needed to do next. Ok…first he should take an inventory of everything he had on him. Peter fished through his pockets. Great…the only thing he really had on him was his watch and the stupid mangled squeaky mouse. Well there was very little light left and there was no way he was going to be able to find his way out of the woods tonight, he might as well find or make a shelter and bed down for the night and try to find his way home again in the morning.

Peter grabbed a few fallen branches and made a very crude lean-to shelter against a tree. Well, it certainly wasn’t the manor but it’d have to do for the night. Peter got down and crawled underneath trying not to think about any spiders that were most likely lurking in the underbrush nearby. The sun finally set and Peter listened to the sounds of the night-time woods before he finally fell asleep. The hours of walking and the lack of sleep really had drained him. 

Not even an hour later Peter was startled awake by the sounds of breaking branches and twigs. Something large was moving through the woods nearby. Peter got up on his knees and peaked through the branches of his lean-to. What was it?

There was the sound of more twigs snapping as whatever it was got closer. Peter squinted and could make out a large dark shape moving behind the trees a distance away. It definitely wasn’t a person. The shadow looked like an animal; a very LARGE animal. The animal was getting closer to where Peter was, but it was also going back and forth as if it were searching for something. Maybe it was Snowball? No… Snowball didn’t move like that and this creature was a dark color…whatever it was. Was it a bear? There were bears in California and they were active at night…perhaps it would be wise to move somewhere safer?

Where though? Peter looked up at the tree his lean-to was leaned against. Maybe he could climb up the tree and the bear wouldn’t notice him... Peter moved to silently shimmy his way out from under the shelter when suddenly…*sQuEEEEEEeeaaKKKKkkyyyyyy*…he’d accidently crushed the squeaky mouse in his pocket. He looked over at the creature and it seemed to stop and snap to attention at the noise. It let out a growl and it started charging through the trees toward him. 

Peter jumped up, knocking the lean-to down and took off running as fast as he could.

Peter did not consider himself an athlete and his body would agree with his assessment. Years of nerding-out in a science laboratory did not prep him well for running for his life, but he gave it all he had. Fortunately adrenaline and the wish to not die a grisly death was making up for a lot of it. 

He could hear the animal behind him snorting and making growling sounds at him as it chased him. What a day he was having! Peter tried to slow the animal down by running between thickets of trees but the animal just crashed right through them like a locomotive. He couldn’t keep this up forever! 

Finally Peter saw a group of boulders nearby that formed sort of a rocky hill and there was a crevice at the top of one of the boulders that Peter thought he might be able to wedge his body into far enough to shield himself from this animal. Peter turned and started running in the direction of the boulders. They were only 30 yards away…20 yards…10 yards…suddenly Peter’s foot snagged under a tree root that was poking out of the ground. He had been running too fast and couldn’t stop his forward momentum as he tripped and crashed to the ground. The animal was right behind him! 

Instinctively Peter covered his head with his arms waiting for the attack. The animal seemed to be hesitating…why hadn’t it pounced on him? 

A moment or two passed and curiosity got the better of Peter and he started to roll to his side to look back to see what the animal was doing when something hit his shoulder and grabbed on. Peter let out a scream and tried to jump back up to run but whatever had grabbed his shoulder simply pushed him back down. Peter shrieked and again tried to jump up and run only to be once again be pushed back down.

“Hey…hey, easy man…” said a familiar voice.

The shriek in Peter’s throat died out and confusion set in. Peter calmly turned and rolled over into a sit to look at the person who had spoken. “…Steve?”

Steve pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and lit up his face as he grinned at Peter, “the one and only.”

Peter looked around confused. “But…but where did the bear go?” 

Steve quirked his eyebrow, “bear?”

“Yeah…there was this large animal…I…I thought it was a bear. It was right behind me…but now you’re here…where…what…??”

Steve looked uneasy for a moment then laughed. “No man, no bears just me…you must be seeing things again.” 

*…seeing things again…*

There it was again. Peter once again being doubted when he KNEW what he had just experienced. Peter’s anger rose and he was about to open his mouth to give Steve a verbal bashing of a lifetime when something suddenly dawned on him…It had been Steve’s room where he saw the creature that he believed to be a dragon that morning. Once again it was Steve who showed up right after Peter had encountered this creature claiming Peter had imagined it. Why was Steve so sure Peter had imagined it…unless…!!!

Peter said nothing but calmly got up from sitting on the ground and stood looking down at Steve. For how strong a boisterous Steve was, he wasn’t a tall man.

“Hey Steve…how did you find me out here,” asked Peter, “I must be a long way from the Manor and these are some really big woods.”

Steve wrinkled his brow for a second before replying. “Yeah, well…I’m really good at tracking. That’s why I volunteered to find you when you didn’t return after the search was over. We found Snowball chasing the ducks down by the pond. We got worried when you never came back and so I volunteered to go out looking for you.”

“Is that so…”

“Well yeah, man…what else would it be? I have mad skillz!”

“Yeah and maybe some extra senses…animal like ones…ones a normal person wouldn’t have…” said Peter.

The smile dropped off of Steve’s face. “I don’t know what you mean Peter…I…I…”

Peter took a step toward Steve. Sure Peter was scrawny and he had no doubt Steve would hand him his butt in a fight but for the moment Peter could use his height over Steve to his advantage. Steve took a step back.

“Oh I think you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about Steve,” said Peter.

Steve backed up again as Peter took another step toward him. He put on an angry look and growled back at Peter, “I don’t know what you’re talking about…I don’t have time for…” but his words were cut short when Peter reached out and snatched the dew rag off of his head.

“NO!!” Steve yelled as he tried to cover his now exposed head, but it was too late. In the little moon light that filtered through the tree tops Peter had seen them. There on top of Steve’s head were two small horns just barely poking through the top of his dreadlocks.

It was a gamble. When Peter was a kid he had read some of Col Walter’s journals that had been scattered throughout the manor libraries. Most of the family took the contents of the journals as hogwash. The journals covered lots of information about Kazooland and some of the various inhabitants. Young Peter had been particularly fascinated by all the stuff Col Walter had written about the dragons. He remembered one passage mentioning that the dragons could take on a human form, and had done so for a millennia, sneaking through blue matter voids that often appeared and walking among the humans in our world. The only problem was that while a dragon could take on a human form, they could never completely transform and would be left with two small horns atop their heads. Most of them compensated by wearing hats, or other head-covers, to avoid detection. Peter wasn’t sure if any of that had been true or what he’d find when he pulled Steve’s dew rag off, but he was stunned at the revelation.

A moment or two passed as Peter stood there with Steve’s dew rag in his hands. Steve gave up trying to cover his horns. He knew the jig was up. He straightened his posture into a confident stance. 

“Go ahead…say it” said Steve.

“You’re a dragon, aren’t you,” asked Peter.

“Yeah…”

“And so that WAS YOU that I saw this morning in the dormitory…!!!”

“YEAH…YEAH…I KNOW…I GET IT,” yelled Steve. “*sigh*…I can get my stuff and be gone by tomorrow, you don’t have to worry…”

Peter was confused. “What? Why would I want that?”

“Well, now that you know what I am, aren’t you afraid I’m gonna eat all the Walter Workers…or Snowball… or something” said Steve. 

“Well no,” said Peter, “from what I’ve read dragons do eat meat but are pretty intelligent and civilized and consider eating people akin to cannibalism.”

“Oh good, well thank goodness you know the truth from at least one dragon stereotype,” said Steve. “And while we used to eat cats, I personally don’t like them…the fur is hard to get out from between your teeth and as for Snowball, I love that big kitty too much to even consider it.”

“Oh well that’s good to know,” said Peter. “But I do have to ask you. Why did you do it? I mean why did you come all the way from Kazooland to take a job at nuthouse of a manor lugging gear for a bunch of dork robots?”

“Well, I’ve always loved music and wanted to be a sound engineer,” said Steve, “and there aren’t as much opportunities to do that in the land of dragons.” “Plus home was not the best place. I don’t really want to go into it but I had to get out. I didn’t really have a family and things were rough.”

“That’s ok, you don’t have to go into detail if you don’t want to” said Peter.

“Thanks man, it’s hard to talk about and I don’t really like getting into those emotions,” Steve paused looking at the ground for a moment. “But yeah…thanks.”

“So you needed a job and a safe place to live” said Peter. “And I can tell you that you’ve found a family too.” Steve looked up at him. “I don’t see anything wrong with having a resident dragon at Walter Manor.”

Steve grinned. “So…you’re not sending me away?”

“No, why would I?” said Peter. “Walter Manor is full of unique people. Hell, we got a gardener with a Picasso eye and lobster claw fingers…I don’t think you’ll have too much of an issue fitting in.” 

Steve laughed, “naaa, I suppose not.”

Peter handed Steve his dew rag back and Steve covered back up his horns.

“Yeah, I see no issue at all keeping you employed here at Walter Manor…I mean assuming you have no other horrendous secrets you are keeping from us…”

Steve laughed nervously.

Peter pegged him with a stare…”what…what is it?”

*Sigh*…“Ok…I am secretly addicted to Pokemon Go,” said Steve, “I know a grown ass man shouldn’t be into kids stuff…”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!” cried Peter, “DO YOU HAVE ANY CHARMANDERS…WANT TO BATTLE SOMETIME??!!

 

A month later and many Pokemon Go battles Peter felt like he knew Steve a lot better and could say he genuinely liked the guy. They had decided not to tell the other members of the household about Steve being a dragon. In the end they decided it wasn’t really important in any way that mattered and it was also in a way, none of their business. It would just be a secret between employer and employee…or friends. 

Peter was just finishing up his latest battle of Pokemon Go with Steve on his iphone when The Jon wandered into his lab. 

“NO!!! Oh man not again!!!” cried Peter.

“What’s wrong Peter,” said The Jon shuffling over to him. Peter hadn’t heard The Jon enter the lab so his sudden appearance starled him. “Oh hi Jon…oh it’s just this game I was playing on my phone with Steve. His Charizard just whooped my Bulbasaur…again. Actually he always beats me when he’s playing his Charizard no matter what pokemon I use…”

“Maybe that’s because he’s a dragon too” said The Jon.

“WHAT?!” cried Peter, “Jon…what did you just say??!”

The Jon smiled dreamily and said “I said maybe Steve is so good using his Charizard pokemon because he’s a dragon too.”

“How…how did you know that…that’s a secret!” cried Peter.

“Don’t worry, no one else knows” said The Jon.

“But…how did you know?” said Peter

“Oh, I’ve always known since the day he first came to the manor to ask for a job” said The Jon, “honestly, I’m surprised no one else noticed by now.” 

With that final exchange The Jon wandered out of Peter’s lab as Peter sat in stunned confusion. How does he do that…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took quite awhile because I honestly got stuck on this story. I knew what I wanted to do but got lost in the details. I hope the end product was worth the wait for you all. :D


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